The voters have spoken.

But the message that they sent was decidedly mixed. While the Progressive Labour Party was returned to power with an eight-seat majority under the new 36-seat constituency system last night, many of the races were astonishingly close.

Indeed, the PLP's total margin of victory in the four closest races it won was just 76 votes, and had they gone the other way, the Election would have been tied.

But that's politics, and the PLP won a majority of the overall vote and can therefore claim to be the legitimate government, although it has a reduced mandate from the one it received in 1998. If this was an affirmation, it was a highly conditional one.

Nowhere was that more true than in the Premier's own constituency, where she was re-elected by just eight votes, a stunning result in a seat that she should have won with some ease.

That result, and the reduction in the PLP's share of the popular vote, must throw her ability to lead into question. Many members of the PLP parliamentary group have made it clear that they are dissatisfied with her leadership, and may consider the time ripe to attempt a palace revolution.

But Ms Smith has never backed down from a challenge and it likely that, having led the PLP to a second successive victory, she will fight tooth and nail to remain in office.

In the end, the Election came down to a question of second chances.

Would the majority of voters choose to give the Progressive Labour Party another chance based on what it had achieved since 1998, and in spite of the criticisms of its governing style and scandals over the Bermuda Housing Corporation and the Berkeley site?

Or would they decide to give the "new" United Bermuda Party a second chance after turfing it out in such dramatic fashion five years ago?

The campaign itself gave few indications, except that yesterday's vote was likely to be very close - as it turned out to be.

The PLP ran almost entirely on its record, and made, in its words, few grandiose promises. Indeed, it made barely any promises at all, instead arguing it needed more time to finish the job it started in 1998.

And until the last few days, it ran a very low key campaign which suggested that in spite of having the advantage of incumbency in setting the date, that it was less ready to go than the Opposition.

Indeed, it was still selecting candidates almost up to Election day and failed to distribute its platform to the General Election until Wednesday this week.

In contrast, the UBP ran a better campaign and rolled out a range of new initiatives aimed at showing that it was a changed party from the one that ran the Island for 30 years.

The UBP too, no doubt, will be looking at its leadership and some may question whether Grant Gibbons is the man to lead the party to government. Having said that, he has rebuilt and re-fashioned a party that many were prepared to consign to the dustbin of history five years ago and deserves enormous credit for that.

In the end, the voters decided to give the PLP a second chance and were not ready to give it to the UBP.

But the vote also suggests that the voters want a change in style. They want a government that is less dictatorial and more democratic and they want a government that does care what they think.

It is quite likely that in the next few weeks the PLP itself will decide if Ms Smith is the person who can accomplish that.