Neither the One Bermuda Alliance nor the Progressive Labour Party seems to be finding much favour with the voters as we head towards the next General Election. In the final instalment of a three-part series, we ask political commentators how both parties will improve their lot in the coming months

Both parties will drastically transform their images as a likely General Election year gets under way, political commentator Phil Perinchief predicts.

The Progressive Labour Party desperately needs a new slate of candidates owing to its supporters’ dismay over a lack of “competence, talent and experience” among its existing team, Mr Perinchief said.

He said the PLP needs to fix the growing view that it is a “divided party with an unhealthy imbalance of youthful naivety and a troubling lack of vision”.

Meanwhile, he said, the One Bermuda Alliance requires a huge rebranding exercise after failing to shed its image as a reincarnation of the United Bermuda Party that has propped up the elite at the expense of the struggling poor.

Many blacks believe the OBA is capable of fixing Bermuda’s social problems, he said, but are “stubbornly refusing to do so”.

Another political commentator, David Sullivan, warned that while the OBA has made important steps in stabilising the island’s rocking economy, its communication efforts about that good work have been its weakness. He believes that while the PLP has been strong on criticism of the OBA, it has been short on valid solutions to problems.

Mr Perinchief, a former PLP Cabinet minister and election candidate, and Mr Sullivan, who ran for the UBP in 2007, shared their thoughts with The Royal Gazette at the beginning of what many expect to be a General Election year. Both ran as independents in the 2012 election.

Mr Perinchief said of his former party: “The presently constituted PLP has an image problem that needs fixing.

“Apart from the festering fracture in its midst, it is being seen by a growing number of people as lacking the capacity, competence, talent, experience and vision to move to resolution or sustained progress, the 10,000-pound weight elephant of problems facing Bermuda today and with which the OBA is unsuccessfully struggling.

“It is being voiced around, for example, that the current PLP may be capable of handling only one tenth of this ‘elephant’ problem. It has a huge amount of work to do if longevity as a party, and years of successive government administrations, factor among their current goals and objectives.

“Accordingly, I expect that the PLP will go first among its members, and subsequently to its supporters at large, who have grown tired of mediocrity in their ranks, in order to recruit the requisite experience, competence and talent to move that entire organisation to a greater degree of stability and meritocracy.

“It is imperative that they be seen, locally and abroad, as capable of handling the 10,000-pound elephant sitting among us.”

Too many PLP MPs believe they are “territorially entitled to the fiefdoms of their constituencies in perpetuity”, Mr Perinchief said.

He added: “This posture has the effect of stifling free-flowing growth and the succession of young and seasoned aspirants moving unimpeded up throughout the upper echelons of the PLP administration and organisation.”

He advised confining all MPs to a maximum of two consecutive terms, with a mandatory two-year primary challenge for their positions.

“The PLP, in particular, would be immeasurably strengthened as a result of such changes should it move to overcome these challenges,” he said.

However, Mr Perinchief said the public perception of a “united, reinvigorated, reformed, talented and generationally connected new-face PLP” would set the party up for success for years to come.

“I expect the PLP knows this, and will prior to the next election roll out a clearly articulated, timely and appropriate succession plan in its ranks for its young, and not-so-young, ambitious and capable aspirants,” he said.

“Externally, I expect the PLP will deploy in its election manifesto, a clearly thought-through and realistic plan for the next five, ten, 15 and 20 years for tackling the problems mentioned, and generally advancing Bermuda’s interests here and abroad over time.

“Once these plans are understood and accepted by both rank and file, I expect the PLP will hit the marginal constituencies, in particular, with hordes of confident, informed, and energised members and supporters to sell their message.”

The General Election must happen by May 2018 at the latest, but observers believe Michael Dunkley, the Premier, is more likely to cash in on any feel-good factor generated by the America’s Cup before the end of this year.

Mr Perinchief said: “If the OBA has the political good sense and will in its arsenal, I expect that it will in the relatively very short window left focus on better selling its key initiatives, abandoning, suspending or toning-down its vote-losing ones, recruiting more grassroot members to work in outreach forages into marginal constituencies in order to persuade swing voters and undecideds to its points of view and demonstrably rebranding itself away from the Bermuda Inc imagery and towards a more inclusive Mr and Mrs Joe Public persona and mission.”

The OBA needs to connect with black people who are struggling in an unforgiving economy and feel excluded from society, he said.

“The social problems we witness today are direct by-products of this economic exclusion and dislocation,” Mr Perinchief said.

Mr Sullivan, meanwhile, believes the OBA has successfully made difficult decisions to help to steer Bermuda out of serious financial trouble.

“Traditionally, the incumbent runs on its record of accomplishments and the challenger offers ‘better ideas’ to sway voters for support,” he said.

“The current government, very much like the claim of the Obama Administration, can take credit for stabilising Bermuda’s financial and economic ship. It inherited the historically worst financial position that we have ever found ourselves in. Not only in debt, but no plan to get out of it was the legacy of the former government.

“The proverbial ‘alligators and swamp’ scenario was presented to the current government at the time its administration started, as well as an already agreed Budget that was difficult to change due to the timing of the election and transfer of administrations.

“While many of the decisions taken by the current government have not been earth-shattering or indeed memorable, they were necessary for the economy to see its way out of the mess.

“We are not out of it yet, nor will we be for some time, but direction is important and few can argue with any validity that the current direction is wrong.

“The management of Bermuda is the current government’s strengths, with its communications efforts of just what it takes to right the ship and keep it on course its weakness.”

Mr Sullivan pointed to internal struggling within the PLP, which included the resignation of eight Shadow Cabinet members before leader Marc Bean quit politics altogether in November.

“They have been strong on criticism and objecting but weak on valid or tested plans and ideas as to how they would solve that which they are critical of or objecting to,” he said.

“They have been distracted by petty flavour-of-the-day skirmishes, including many internally, the results of which have been an eroding of their credibility as a viable alternative at this moment.

“Their most recent leadership debacle and its continuing fallout will not assist them in reversing that perception any time soon.”

He added that the OBA and the PLP face the challenge of trying to win over “an almost equally split electorate”.

He said: “The results of 2012 was proof of same. Hard party support lines have been drawn and the uncommitted voter will hold the balance. That is the target that both parties need support from, as neither of the two major parties have enough support from their own numbers.

“We may see a similar scenario as the United States, in that a popular support to one but control to the other. Albeit for 15 votes in 2012, it could have happened then. Every vote counts.”