Twenty four hours is a long time in politics, or so the saying goes. A few months therefore are an eternity.

If there’s anything that we’ve learned in Bermuda over the past few years, months, and hours, it’s that the more things change the more they stay the same. As we head into election season, we find ourselves in a very interesting situation.

A few short months ago we were assured that the United Bermuda Party was dead in the water, courtesy of a couple of disgruntled members and a leader who struggled to find his footing. After a rather prolonged production, that group appears to have weathered the storm, selected a new leader and is moving forward by attempting to win hearts and minds one vote at a time.

The flip side of this coin is where things get much more interesting, once you scratch at the surface that is and look past the scripted press conferences, press releases and bravado.

The Progressive Labour Party under Dr. Brown is an invincible re-invigorated political juggernaut, not the bitterly divided party of the past decade which stared into the abyss only seven months ago, and, seeing electoral defeat held their noses and cast their lot with the Prime Misleader — or that’s what we’re told.

But while the Brownies exude ultimate confidence through their calculated aura of invincibility, led by cocky declarations from Dr. Brown that his party will take 30 out of 36 seats and obliterate the UBP, the reality is that one of the Premier’s top generals had to be brute forced back into his incumbent seat in Southampton, the Premier’s Chief of Staff can’t find a home, nor can many other of his hand-selected loyalists; there is a confirmed full-fledged quiet riot in the PLP between the new power elite and the branch workers.

It’s uncanny that exactly four years on from the post election internal coup of 2003, we’re right back where we started, with a stand-off between two entrenched camps within the PLP.

Not one to consider other perspectives, the omnipresent, omniscient Premier has described the castrating of his branch infrastructure as a “deepening of democracy” rather than an obvious attempt to install his disciples, aka The Entourage; the friends, business associates and yes men who hover a foot or two behind the Premier with their adoring gazes, no-bid Government contracts and rubber stamps, determined to stay in the good graces of their Messiah so that they can swoop in at the last minute to displace those who aren’t feeling the love.

The official line of course is that anyone who doesn’t receive Dr. Brown’s blessing can’t win a seat; which puts the lie to the idea that the UBP are the walking dead and confirms that this election will be competitive.

The truth is that while the UBP had their problems, those were isolated to a couple of individuals who made a disproportionate amount of noise over their personal disappointment in a way that caused maximum disruption; the PLP on the other hand appear to be in the middle of yet another power struggle, or more accurately out, the continuation of an almost decade old one.

Four years on Bermuda finds itself with a governing party with the too familiar battle lines drawn. The only material changes appear to be that the showdown might occur before the election this time — not immediately after it (or maybe before and after) — and a role reversal of sorts, with Dr. Brown on the receiving end in 2007.

Payback’s a bitch; welcome to the PLP’s pre-election showdown: The Untouchables versus the Unelectables.

This could get very interesting, because it’s a battle for the heart and soul of the PLP, with Dr. Brown and his new brand of Forty Thieves attempting to purge any check on his power base by an independent party structure to clear the way for years and years of rampant excess, lack of oversight, over the top perks and backroom sweetheart deals.

In many ways the PLP’s internal choice parallels the inter-party choice which will be placed before the electorate in the next coming months. This feels familiar.

In 1998 the UBP received a well-earned kick in the pants from the electorate after 34 years at the helm; now it’s Dr. Brown and the PLP’s turn, after they’ve demonstrated an incredibly proficiency in refining the very traits they decried for decades.

Evidently when we were told that the way things operated in the past we misunderstood; it’s clear now that the acts themselves weren’t wrong in the minds of the PLP elite, it was the perpetrators that were the problem.

The Bermuda Emissions scandal has demonstrated that yesterday’s corruption is today’s ‘entrepreneurship’; or that’s what Dr. Brown would have us believe.

In the few but tumultuous months since Dr. Brown seized the reigns of power, Bermuda has witnessed a tsunami of self-absorbed excess in the form of motorcades, entourages and luxurious overseas junkets; the obliterating of ethical boundaries with political donors, political wannabees, and friends and family receiving lucrative Government contracts (Kurron Shares of America, Bermuda Emissions etc.); well-functioning public services have been axed with little and changing justification; the emergence of clear conflicts of interest (how can we tolerate the owner of a private clinic closing a public one while only recently stating his aspirations to open a private hospital in Bermuda?); and a green light for big money and Dr. Brown’s foreign financiers to help themselves to Bermuda’s treasures.

If this is how Dr. Brown and his followers behave before an election, imagine what we’re in for if they think they’re free and clear for a five year reign.www.politics.bm