Many people viewed the PLP's emphatic election win as a sign of a party settling into a long stint in power, an unstoppable electoral juggernaut which is set to keep rolling out poll wins for years to come at the drop of a writ.

But for political activist Corin Smith, a former PLP member who quickly became disillusioned with what he calls its 'paranoid schizophrenia', the Governing party is a like a shot elephant which keeps running even though it is mortally wounded.

It's momentum carried it over the finishing line on December 18 but in reality it is dying.

That statement and others could make Mr. Smith the most optimistic United Bermuda Party supporter alive but he argues Government's arrogance, intensified under Ewart Brown is so at odds with Bermudian culture that new UBP leader Kim Swan could well make the breakthrough and succeed where his three predecessors all failed.

He cites the stand taken by former BIU shop steward Barclay Carmichael who, on the eve of the election, argued the PLP's record was unsatisfactory, there were too many questions about personal conduct and that the Country needed a change.

"That was like a bullet into the nerve centre of the PLP, it is running but it's falling."

He said the PLP fell apart after the 1981 strike at a time it was expected to capitalise on the crisis.

"So the PLP even now, at its most powerful, could be most vulnerable."

It might strike many as being an unduly rosy view of the UBP's current position considering they have been through four leaders in two years while up to seven MPs were on the verge of quitting at the beginning of the year.

And he readily recognises he might be a voice in the wilderness.

"I get a lot of optimism from Barack Obama — he's very successfully proved you can bring new people into the political process but you have to recognise that they exist.

"That reality exists even more in Bermuda — there is easily 30 percent of the population not included in the political process. There are very few leaders that accept and honour that reality."

He said a UBP victory is possible but the youth vote, as in the previous three elections, will be the key.

"I think the population has matured, it is a lot more discerning and sophisticated."

Optimistic about its future, Mr. Smith also has a novel take on the UBP's past — describing it as a club rather than monopoly — with Mr. Swan humble and vulnerable enough to tap into that same team spirit as he did in the Throne Speech.

And he argued the old oligarchy worked in a more collective way than is seen in PLP Cabinet Government today and would regularly issue white papers and green papers. "Those guys, given their time, were way more transparent than these guys.

"Today they function like gangsters."

And while many Opposition figures believe the PLP will again rachet up the race card in the next campaign Mr. Smith believes it is played out.

"I take the view that Ewart Brown is the best thing that ever happened to the UBP. His 'Karl Rove' style of attack-dog campaigning actually created sympathy for the UBP so they were able to lose their traditionally token 'black caucus' — Jamahl Simmons, Gwyneth Rawlins, Maxwell Burgess and others — and not fall apart the way that the PLP did in the 1980s.

"It took the PLP 15 years to recover from that self-induced crisis. The UBP recovered in less than nine months.

"If Ewart Brown had been a John Swan he would immediately have called a general election and the UBP would have been decimated, they would have been lucky to get four or five seats. Instead the Premier blinked, he wasn't sure enough of his grip on the PLP to call the election then.

"The one thing that happened from 2007 is that they will never be able to use that race card again. He's bullying blacks into loyalty to the party over equity." A racist and zenophobic stance was being dressed up as being revolutionary argued Mr. Smith.

Mr. Smith, a lawyer who helped run the Civil Rights Coalition of Bermuda and has been involved with The Royal Gazette's Break the Chains campaign, now lives in the Caymans but takes a keen interest in his homeland.

He said the longevity of the UBP has surprised even the UBP.

"If the UBP was as bad as the PLP think it is then why is it still relevant? The UBP has never gone below 47 percent.

"(The PLP) will say that's a tribute to white privilege, but maybe it's because there is ideological support for the UBP which is actually very resilient. Maybe it is so resilient that even an idiot can run it and it will still be superior.

"The strength of the UBP is that it is collegial, it is something that anyone can tap into. The UBP may not even understand its true strength."

It begs the question why did it lose? Mr. Smith blames the use of US political consultants who don't understand the political landscape of the Island.

He said the old UBP was confident enough to use its own knowledge of the community directly whereas now they were hoping consultants would do that for them, although he credits former leader Michael Dunkley for trying to reverse that process.

It's a reoccurring theme with Mr. Smith who said both parties need to grasp that Bermudian politics is about the personal touch.

"The Premier, because of the confrontational style that he has, has shut out more people than he has brought in.

"Kim can be the beneficiary of that, he's humble enough to win the trust of that group, whereas the Premier would never get it because of his style.

"George Bush tried to micromanage everything he did in power and it started to unravel. In Bermuda, no matter how much you try to micromanage Bermudians, there is always somebody that can actually do you a lot of damage."

He said Mr. Swan had struck the right tone to appeal to both the middle class and the emerging underclass.

"He struck me as a refreshing influence on the process because of his obvious enthusiasm for the role and his eagerness to set a new tone for the Opposition.

"In my view, he has a genuine common touch that resonates with a lot of grassroots constituents, but his style is at risk of being suffocated by a party machine that will inhibit his ability to connect with people outside his obvious role as Opposition Leader."

He said the 20 percent of blacks who used to vote UBP — a black merchant class — had been eroded since the days of John Swan but his namesake could turn out to be an equally galvanizing figure.

Both Swans have taken over the party in similar circumstances, said Mr. Smith, who argued that Sir John had been a relatively marginal cabinet minister before his ascendency but had surprised everyone by being able to resonate so well with the common man.

"With all the grooming he went through he never lost that common touch which gave him so much longevity.

"I think one of Kim Swan's assets is he's got that style and the PLP doesn't have anyone like that. Most of their people are very arrogant.

"They have enjoyed the privileges of power and for them it would be a struggle to find anyone like him who genuinely had the common touch."

Indeed humility and arrogance is a common subject in Mr. Smith's take on politics. He believes the PLP only won in 1998 because the UBP fell apart.

"The PLP in power is following the same arrogance that led to the collapse of the UBP. They only patronise PLP people."

He is not uncritical of the UBP, noting it has few backers outside business, while the PLP has the unions, the churches and workmen's clubs.

"The UBP never had the humility to seek endorsement. If you have an in-built arrogance you would rather die than ask a favour."

However he says there signs of change in the Opposition.

"The UBP actually know what it is like to have had power and lost it so they have to understand what means to be humble.

"The PLP in its arrogance of having three successive victories could actually think that what it has done has been working all this time. It is the same problem they had in 1980."

He said unexpected things happen in Bermudian politics all the time as he cited the hasty downfall of two-time election winner Jennifer Smith.

"When politicians take people for granted they set themselves up to be surprised."

Some observers think the PLP can easily switch tacks and choose a peacemaker as leader if the Ewart factor begins to grate on the nerves of the electorate. But Mr. Smith believes it could be too late.

"The fact that they have tolerated this kind of conduct means that they will be tainted by it. It is going to be very difficult to repeal the damage."

His disdain for the PLP comes from a series of disappointments dating back to the 1990s when he was a member. The PLP's suspicion of lowering the voting age troubled him and further alarm bells arose when he saw its hostility to a conference of black mayors in its first days in power just because it had been organised by a different party.

More recently he is astounded that the PLP elite talk about slavery yet back conscription which he says is its closest modern day equivalent and had been ditched by virtually everyone else.

"Why did a PLP government have a study into the young black male? Because they don't know. Now they are afraid to release it because they don't want people to know they don't know how to deal with it."

He said the PLP was increasingly secretive and elitist. "It is naturally exclusionary, it is naturally inclined to cronyism, it doesn't welcome new ideas.

"Their doctrine is 'PLP all the way, all the way PLP', it isn't Bermuda first or everybody for each other, it's a closed end system where all they work for is the party.

"It comes right out of the communist play book, the party runs the state and the state runs the population and if you join the party everything will be all right.

"But Bermuda is naturally entrepreneurial."

He is aware his stance will annoy former colleagues. "The thing that haunts them is I am above what they think.

"I have got all their skeletons. I was not a sell-out, I was one of the first in the door but they treated me like dirt."

Parties should be there to serve the people not the other way around, said Mr. Smith.

"Party politics is just a tool. It isn't a religion or an ideology but certain people think it is the be all and end all."

He might be the UBP's most confident supporter but he is no longer a member having disagreed with the huge party branding thrown around candidates.

It was something he avoided when he ran for the UBP in the Sandys North bye-election where opponents questioned whether he was actually backed by the party because his campaigning literature didn't even mention the UBP.

However he still lost heavily to Michael Scott, despite being from the area.

"There are very few candidates in the States that run around with elephants or donkeys on their lapels. We get caught up with everyone has got to wear a badge."

He believes the PLP only help those carrying the party badge, justified by how they perceived the UBP operated in their time.

But ultimately the approach is self defeating.

"If you put the people first they will reward you, if you keep putting your badge first they won't follow you."