"Make It Happen". The election slogan of 1998 adorned many car bumpers, inviting Bermudians to join a movement and elect the PLP. The beauty of "Make It Happen" was its vagueness.

"It" meant whatever any potential voter wished but always with the PLP as the vehicle to achieve "it". This short statement promised an ushering in of politics for the people ... we thought.

After a lacklustre and scandal-plagued first term Jennifer Smith shrewdly stayed on message, asking for "Affirmation" of "it", rather than pursue the route of discussing her party's record or presenting a vision for the next term. Again not a bad strategy when you consider the mess that lay in the party's wake.

Six years, another election and a leadership coup down the road most of us are still waiting for "it" to materialise, or have realised that "it" didn't mean what we thought. The current take on the 1998 election slogan invokes another well known 1990s saying. You remember, the other "something happened" catch-phrase of the 1990s - the one that can't be printed in this newspaper. Just add "sh" to the beginning of the second word in "Make It Happen" and you're there.

The electorate who placed their faith in the PLP to produce a government of the people for the people seem increasingly angry, although not yet in full uproar. The community has realised that the "it" they made happen is all about the PLP elite, both elected and unelected.

Anyone who thought that 'it' meant a focus on the public, the grass-roots the PLP claim to have grown out of, will be sorely disappointed or more likely outraged.

The concerns we heard so much about in the run-up to the 1998 election quickly faded away. Instead we've been treated to six years of secretive self dealing and the callous exploitation of the Bermudian voter.

The PLP elite continue to take full advantage of the trappings of power - as Dr. Brown so accurately put it. The latest scandal over the Stonington lease encapsulates the fundamental problem with the values of those who squeaked through a second term followed by the immediate overthrow of their Party leader.

This event is arguably the most disgraceful abuse of Government's social and fiscal responsibility to the Bermudian taxpayer, shining a spotlight on the overarching PLP leadership's governing philosophy: that the public and their dollars exist to serve the interests of Cabinet first and their cronies second.

Stonington, Berkeley, the BHC etc. are all examples of the PLP preference to create not economic empowerment for those previously denied access but complete dependence on themselves.

Scratch my back and I'll scratch yours. So while we'll probably never know what the quid pro quo was that triggered the secretive Stonington lease rewrite, it's not hard to imagine.

Rather than follow clear tendering processes or established financial practices with capital projects, Jennifer Smith - and now her hand picked successor Alex Scott - prefer to use them to keep individuals and businesses beholden to them.

The public should be kept in a constant state of currying favour in order to receive preferential treatment when feeding from the public trough.

The process, if there indeed is one, is unclear to anyone except themselves - appointed boards are bypassed, "wrong" decisions are reversed in private, legally binding agreements are amended behind closed doors and the Auditor is obstructed.

This approach is intended to make themselves indispensable and keep us financially dependent on the PLP leadership and mandated to return the favour at the polls. Government's role should be to create a framework for fair competition without undue impediments with individuals achieving success on their own merits.

Instead we've seen the taxpayers' ever-deepening pockets used as a means to entrench a political elite and their cronies through a system of backdoor agreements, creating economic dependence.

Our political system is being degraded by politicians intoxicated with the accumulation of power and perks for themselves and those closely aligned with them.

Bermudians of all stripes are crying out for elected leaders who put them first, not treat them as pawns in some bizarre game of political catch-me-if-you-can. Perhaps we need one more election to make that happen?

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