Independence for Bermuda is clearly in the hands of the PLP. All it has to do is decree that it's supporters vote "yes'' and Independence will become a reality. Why don't they do so if they are sincerely for Independence and not just playing with it? Why not, when Freddie can tell John that he cannot get the 41 percent he needs from a fragmented UBP so he'll have to accept Independence, if he is serious, being delivered to the people on PLP terms, i.e., single seat constituency, elimination of the foreign vote, etc. John would be sitting in the driver's seat as the driver but the PLP would be the true owner and force behind the referendum vehicle. A political "car-jacking'' if you will.

If John receives a "yes'' for Independence he can make substantial changes internally by ridding himself of factions in his Cabinet and Parliament and externally, by weakening the PLP in adopting some of its programmes. The truth is, even today, John does not need the "traditional'' Front Street support and shackle as represented by the Banks etc., or the white vote. Any slippage or moving away of approximately five to seven percent from this "traditional vote'' can be amply compensated by a gain of five to seven percent from PLP supporters who will see John as giving them Independence, implementing PLP programmes and demonstrating once again that he is a successful businessman who has run Bermuda for the past 13 years. The PLP would then be in a serious dilemma having been seen as siding with Moniz and Cartwright against Independence and not being in position or having the experience to govern Bermuda confidently and effectively. Worse, the people would ask themselves what function does the PLP now have if John has largely implemented its programmes. Would the PLP have to go further "left'' to regain or gain supporters or face an NLP kind of political irrelevance or demise? If John plays his cards right he can be in a win-win position on current issues.

Without John at the helm of the UBP presently, the country will be rocked with major instability and the UBP will disintegrate or fail miserably. Even if the "right wing'' succeeds it would not be able to govern effectively with strong opposition from the back-benchers. Things will have reversed themselves entirely. The UBP will be stood on its head.

The PLP with 46 percent of the electorate could regain or gain control from John or jointly share power with John by entering into a practically binding social pact with him along the lines suggested earlier. Its political existence may depend on it. Presently the PLP's abstention call has split the party seriously. One thing is crystal clear. Front Street and the narrow traditional right wing politics that produced segregation, the property vote, multiple-voting, gerrymandering and the like are dead on their feet. Their burial is imminent. Their days are numbered. The game is up. The black man is in ascendancy in Bermuda in much the same way as we understand it in Zimbabwe, South Africa, Bahamas and the world generally. The black man in Bermuda must not however be seen to be falling in the same bind that the whites in this country fell into, i.e., dominating his white countryman or seeking revenge and retaliation for past injustices. Many white Bermudians in this country must go through a catharsis and metamorphosis to transform and divest themselves of slavemaster mentalities and attitudes in attempting to continue to determine this country's fate and that of black Bermudians politically, socially, culturally and more importantly economically.

It is certainly an irony that we must be the only people in the world where Malcolm X's position was that we could gain a measure of freedom and independence by the ballot as opposed to the bullet and yet there are some who are reluctant to choose the ballot. All we as Bermudians have to do to avoid the inevitability one day of a bloody civil and perhaps racial war in five to ten years' time is with a stroke of a pen vote "yes'' for Independence. With the country polarising to the left and right of the political spectrum war is the inevitable result. We could be the envy of the world instead of the laughing stock of the free world by achieving our Independence by the democratic process of voting.

Vote for continued stability. Vote "yes'' for Independence.

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