The Association for Due Process and the Constitution claimed last week that the Government will use race as a factor in redrawing the Island's constituency boundaries.

The Association used comments made by Government Sen. Calvin Smith as evidence of the Government's plans, and said it would be illegal under the terms of reference struck for the Boundaries Commission which explicitly stated that race should not be used to determine boundaries.

The reason for that exclusion was the Progressive Labour Party's own belief that the decision to use the parish boundaries under the current electoral system was made in order to ensure that the white community was disproportionately represented in Parliament. As a result, the Island is now faced with the anomaly of having some constituencies that are much larger than others and the PLP has long complained that this prevented it from securing power.

That the current system has some elements of unfairness is indisputable; that every constituency except one has a black majority and that no election in Bermuda has been carried by a party with less than 50 percent of the popular vote is equally inarguable.

The question, again, is not whether the new system the Government wishes to introduce is fair, but whether it is the fairest possible system. Having said that, the Association was wrong to take Sen. Smith's statements that the changes would right some of the alleged racial imbalances in the current system to mean that race would be used to determine the new boundaries was incorrect and mischievous.

Sen. Smith said only that the changes would see voters in parishes such as Warwick with large black majorities get more representation and voters in parishes like Paget, with small black majorities (Paget West) or a white majority (Paget East) get less representation. According to the PLP's view of electoral politics, that will mean more seats for the PLP. Still, if the Association was wrong to misinterpret Sen. Smith's statement, the PLP is wrong to presume that black voters receiving a higher value for their vote than they currently enjoy in places like Warwick will translate into more seats for the PLP and fewer seats for the UBP.

That thinking - within both major parties - is what is wrong with Bermuda politics because it presumes that race is the only determinant of voting. Clearly other issues play a major part and it should be recalled that Warwick has returned black and white UBP MPs and PLP MPs.

What is also possible is that a leader, or a party, will emerge who can look at race not as a form of division but as a tool for uniting the community, in which the wrongs of the past and the inequities of the present are recognised, the community's diversity is celebrated and the whole community comes together to eradicate barriers to equality which exist not only for blacks but for all people who are denied their rightful opportunities.

Then Bermuda would enjoy a model democracy.