Suggestions that the Progressive Labour Party may be harbouring racial motives over electoral reform are "mischievous and scandalous," says Government Senator Calvin Smith.

Far from harbouring racial motives, he said, the PLP's electoral reform proposals would create voter parity.

And because the current system - in which the votes of many blacks are of lesser value to that of whites - it meant blacks would be empowered by the reforms.

"The fact that Mr. Cabral surely understands these things and the fact that he is being mischievous about something vitally important to the Bermudian population is scandalous," the senator said.

This week the pressure group, the Association for Due Process and the Constitution, announced to Bermuda that remarks made by the Senator on December 20 - that electoral reform meant black empowerment - suggested that the PLP had racial motives and may "be about to act unlawfully" in its participation in the Boundaries Commission which has been charged with coming with recommendations on the reforms.

"My statement that it will empower blacks has absolutely nothing to do with the selection process. As long as there are unequal seats, unequal size. As long as there is a substantially greater population of blacks than whites, equality necessarily means black empowerment. You can't escape it," the senator said.

He said even if the PLP had a hidden agenda, it couldn't be achieved through the Boundaries Commission because the Commission has an equal number of members from both political parties.

The Commission, which was empaneled late last year has two members from the United Bermuda Party, two from the ruling PLP, a judicial member and a chairperson.

Senator Smith reiterated his argument that black voters are currently handicapped at the polls because of constituencies of unequal size - the larger constituencies return the same number of candidates as the smaller ones.

"I'm saying the criteria for increased empowerment of those people whose votes does not have the same value as others, the criteria is equality," said the senator who is a former Government Chief Statistician. "Now if you make it a level playing field, whites and blacks in these areas benefit. And these areas are where they've got a larger than average populations are Warwick, Sandys, Devonshire - Pembroke is about even. But Warwick, Sandys and Devonshire they're very high. So everybody there - white and black - benefits."

But the majority of the constituencies have majority black voter population, he said, and equalising the size of the constituencies - one of the parameters of the Boundaries Commission's work - would remove the disparity which is one of the last vestiges of institutional racism in Bermuda electoral arrangements, he said.

"The man is not stupid so I have to call him mischievous," Sen Smith said of Association Secretary Warren Cabral. "Because the argument I just put that this will result in black empowerment is obvious. Now the question of why the PLP or any other fair-minded Government would be interested in racial empowerment derives out of our past - of a past of enslavement, of segregation and of a long period where the ruling party was absolutely refusing to liberalise the vote. The annual registration wasn't our thing and that worked unfairly against us. The single seat constituencies not only was rejected by the UBP but remember when we moved from parish voting, the first shift from parish voting was the plus vote - which John Plowman had a lot to do with. Setting up the plus vote certainly didn't empower blacks. And we've had a history of subversive activities to diminish black voting power at the polls. For the first time in the history of Bermuda blacks will be participating in the voting thing on an equal playing field - for the first time in the history of Bermuda."

And he challenged the UBP to "explain why they want unequal seats."

He added : "And Mr. Cabral who is so interested in citizens rights - I would have thought would have been extremely happy about it. He might explain to the public why he's not happy about the fact that blacks are at last getting a level playing field as far as voting is concerned. Is he also upset that there are moves to provide blacks a level playing field in the economy. Does this upset him also ? Will we be hearing from him in the future that the PLP has racist attitudes because we want to provide a level playing field for blacks in the economy ? And if we don't, we should be taken out and shot."

He said his comments made after the last senate session came about because he was trying to impress upon the Opposition Party that they could no longer rely on race during electoral campaigns, and should focus on the issues and policies.

He said that had always been the case for the PLP.