The Progressive Labour Party stormed to victory in the 2017 General Election with the most votes ever won under Bermuda’s parliamentary system.

The new ruling party got 20,059 votes across the country on Tuesday: almost 59 per cent of the popular vote and 5,841 more votes than it received when it narrowly lost to the One Bermuda Alliance in 2012.

The figure of 20,059 represents the highest number of votes obtained by a political party under the system of 36 single-seat constituencies, which has been in place since 2003. Previously, it was 16,800 votes, or 52.4 per cent of the popular vote, as won by the PLP in 2007.

The scale of the win defied a Global Research poll from last week showing the OBA gaining half the popular vote, but Leslie Steede, director of Global Research, said the company had a proven track record, and stood behind its survey.

“In politics, a lot can change in a short period of time, and our belief is that the campaign strategies employed by the PLP in last few days resonated with voters,” Dr Steede added.

“Poll are never perfect, and we will be reviewing our modelling based on the result of the election.”

Jonathan Smith, who was election day campaign manager for Christopher Famous, the PLP candidate who unseated Bob Richards in Devonshire East, told The Royal Gazette:

“We have never had this seismic shift in terms of total vote count. The highest ever [previously] was 16,000. [For the PLP] to go from 14,000 [in 2012] to 20,000 — that’s pretty seismic in terms of ‘get out the vote’.”

The term “get out the vote” describes efforts to increase voter turnout in elections and Mr Smith said a huge part of the PLP’s success this year was down to how it mobilised the electorate.

The number of registered voters increased by nearly 3,000 to 46,669 between April last year and June this year and the total voter turnout for the 2017 General Election was 72.9 per cent, compared to 67.4 per cent in 2012.

The relatively high turnout translated into more votes for the PLP, which did far better even than in 1998, when it first swept to power.

Back then, the party won 54.5 per cent of the popular vote, increasing that this time by more than 4 percentage points to 58.8 per cent.

Mr Smith said another “stunning” aspect of the PLP’s 2017 landslide victory was the way it managed to secure huge majorities in seats which were previously marginals, such as Pembroke Central and Sandys North.

Mr Famous’s achievement in Devonshire East, meanwhile, went beyond just a political newcomer taking a seemingly safe OBA seat from a sitting MP, who also happened to be finance minister and deputy premier.

“The PLP has never won this seat,” noted Mr Smith. “And nobody has ever secured 500 votes [in that seat]. Chris has got the highest number of votes of any candidate in this constituency, ever.”

In Mr Famous’s case, his campaign manager described him as an “absolutely amazing person” who did “99 per cent of the work” in getting himself elected.

A month before the election, he felt Mr Famous had a “real fighting chance” of winning but it became clear as the election drew near just how much he had connected with voters.

“Chris just kept canvassing and canvassing and canvassing,” said Mr Smith. “It’s an amazing experience to watch people connect with Chris Famous. He’s got a humility that is striking.”

Mr Smith said it was clear early on Tuesday that the PLP’s supporters — traditionally said to cast their ballots later in the day — were coming out in force in Devonshire East.

“I knew at 9.30[am] that we had an incredibly realistic chance of winning in 11 and the reason why is because we tally the vote,” he said.

“In each election headquarters, you are tracking during the day. You know who has voted and how many people have voted. We knew how many had already pledged their support to Chris because they had told him.

“So we saw numbers during the day that pushed us [ahead].”

The former police commissioner said of the constituency 11 campaign team: “Our job was to get the voters out to vote. You have dedicated party workers who are on the phone all day. We did that all day Tuesday. That’s politics 101.”

He added: “I set an aggressive target for our team. At 7am [on election day] I said ‘our job is twofold: to get Chris elected and to make sure he wins 500 to 510 votes’. You can only do that when a candidate canvasses thoroughly. You can’t just pull a figure out of the air. He actually got 513.

“It represents, at the end of the day, that the power is never at 105 Front Street [the Cabinet Office]. The power is with the people. Chris Famous, more than any other candidate, exemplified what the vote can do.”

The numbers

2017

Number of registered voters: 46,669

Total vote count: 34,060

PLP: 20,059 votes (58.89 per cent of the popular vote)

OBA: 13,832 votes (40.61 per cent)

2012

OBA: 15,949 (51.68 per cent)

PLP: 14,218 (46.07 per cent)

2007

PLP: 16,800 (52.45 per cent)

UBP: 15,161 (47.34 per cent)

2003

PLP: 15,222 (51.64 per cent)

UBP: 14,142 (47.98 per cent)

The figures in this article are taken from The Royal Gazette and other online archives, as the Parliamentary Registrar was unable to provide official data

Party exceeded its own expectations

Sam Strangeways

The Progressive Labour Party was “very confident” of a comfortable win in Tuesday’s General Election but did not expect such a large parliamentary majority.

The party won 24 seats in the House of Assembly, compared to 12 for the One Bermuda Alliance — creating a 12 seat advantage over the Opposition, which the PLP has not enjoyed since it first came to power in 1998.

Party spokeswoman Liana Hall told The Royal Gazette: “We felt very confident. We knew that from the people we had met on the doorsteps and the amount of time we had spent speaking with people, getting our message out, that we had a lot of support. But, at the same time, we didn’t know we would have this many seats. There were a lot of upsets and surprises.”

Ms Hall said there was no “party consensus” on how many seats it would win — and some individuals within the PLP actually did predict 24 seats — but the final total went beyond expectations, thanks to several candidates winning seats considered to be either marginal or safe OBA constituencies.

One example was party organiser Christopher Famous, a union activist who unseated Bob Richards in Devonshire East.

“We knew he had garnered a lot of support,” said Ms Hall. “There were some ... who believed, without a doubt, that he would take this seat and the rest of us were very unsure. As the results came in, it became clear that Chris was going to win that seat and that he was going to win that seat quite comfortably.

“That seat, in itself, indicated a mood change in the country as a whole, that the deputy leader of the OBA and Bermuda’s finance minister was going to be unseated by a first-time candidate.

“When that happened, we were elated and we were encouraged and we knew we had something special going on.”

She pointed to Dennis Lister III’s “incredible result” in Warwick West as another example of a seat that was by no means thought to be in the bag. The 31-year-old beat OBA incumbent Jeff Sousa, the latter having said before the count that it would take a “miracle” to unseat him.

Ms Hall said: “We knew he was working hard but that was a surprise because, as far as we felt, it was an OBA stronghold. There was a big turnout in that constituency. We were elated; we felt that that victory was really showing a special shift.”

Even some of the PLP’s losses were encouraging, according to the party press officer, because candidates made significant inroads into OBA majorities.

“Curtis Richardson, while not a win for us in Paget East, garnered nearly 400 votes. It showed a huge difference [to past elections]. We have never received that number of votes in that constituency.”

She attributed her party’s landslide win to its clear message about “two Bermudas” — a reference not to race but to the “haves and have notes” in society — and that message being pushed to the electorate by a young campaign team, all under the age of 40.

“We galvanised young people. We think the message resonated with a lot of people,” said Ms Hall, adding that whites were among those to whom it appealed.

“We have white labourers and white workers and white business owners who are also struggling and suffering. Even if they are not, I think as a country we have come to a point where ideologically we feel we can do better by our fellow Bermudians.”

The PLP’s large majority in the House means David Burt, the Premier, who announced his Cabinet yesterday, now has a sizeable back bench of 14 MPs.