Lacklustre leadership and direction from both the Government and the Opposition United Bermuda Party is turning people off politics and likely to lead to many not bothering to vote in the next General Election.

And the UBP?s change of leadership to Wayne Furbert last month is not going to spark the changes that the Opposition party is hoping for, according to its former election campaign strategist David Sullivan. Mr. Sullivan stepped down from that role in 2002 but he still aligns himself with the ?historical programme and philosophy governance? of the UBP.

He believes both the UBP and the governing Progressive Labour Party are turning people away from politics because of lacklustre leadership and no clear sense of direction and feels there is very little difference in the policies of the UBP of 1998 to those of the PLP in 2006.

He warned: ?They are really not giving credit to the voting public of this country in my estimation, and I think it is going to show up in really significant numbers in the next general election. People are just not going to bother because of a lacklustre leadership and direction from the Government and clearly in the Opposition as well now.

?I think the voting public are watching carefully and I would not be surprised to see some sort of groundswell movement prior to the general election to the discord that people are really feeling in Bermuda.?

Mr. Sullivan does not believe the UBP leadership change, from Dr. Grant Gibbons to Wayne Furbert, was necessary and feels the way it was carried out is not going to produce the results the Party anticipates.

He said: ?I think the UBP is running its next election campaign on the basis that it is going to win by default because people are going to be so annoyed with the current Government. But people in Bermuda are extremely well educated as an electorate.

Both political parties are off-kilter to what the electorate is trying to tell them.

?What?s being asked for is a degree of leadership and a degree of direction. Bermuda has enjoyed, since post-Second World War, a fairly robust economy. When the current Government took over in 1998 the cookie jar was full, the gas tank was full, everything was there.?

He said in the intervening years the country has been ?ticking over? without direction or vision, while the decline in tourism had been masked as a economic woe by money going into the Government?s coffers from the international business section.

Bermudians want to know what the future plan is for the Island, they want to see a vision and a plan, said Mr. Sullivan.

?Are we to educate our children to survive in the international insurance industry or the hospitality industry or some other industry that does not even exist?? he asked.

?Opposition?s role seems to have been reduced to criticising what is going on without offering plans. The UBP needs to come to the fore very quickly with some sort of vision for Bermuda.

?It needs to be a real programme for five, seven, eight years that we can look at and say ?yes, that?s worthwhile, let?s do our sacrifice and make sure that ten years from now we?re in shape?. When we start to do that we will start to see more respect for Government and the political process.?

He also feels the UBP should be clear and open about the mechanism and circumstances that led to Mr. Furbert becoming leader in the middle of January, which followed a series of meetings over the latter part of 2005 culminating in a meeting at UBP Shadow Minister with Portfolio Michael Dunkley?s home where Mr. Furbert was declared the new leader.

Mr. Sullivan said: ?My understanding is that there was a fairly lacklustre meeting with people not wanting to vote at all and eventually they said ?Well, we have to look intelligent and come out of this with something? and that something was Wayne Furbert as leader.?

The UBP should tell the whole story if there is more to the way the change took place, adding: ?When you are in Opposition you really have very little to lose. It?s a time to be at your most honest, most frank and most self-critical position because you are there for a reason ? the electorate put it there.?

Party chairman Gwyneth Rawlins said there was no head-to-head vote. She said: ?Wayne was elected unanimously by the parliamentary group.

?We had been having discussions, of which Dr. Gibbons was part, and the net result was that the group voted Mr. Furbert leader through our constitution. There was no vote between Dr. Gibbons and Wayne.?