A long honeymoon period has been filled with hope and promise, but the Progressive Labour Party has yet to scratch the surface when it comes to some of Bermuda’s longstanding problems, a former PLP minister said yesterday.

Phil Perinchief, a political scientist, applauded the Government’s delivery of election platform targets and highlighted an apparent shift among some voters in what were seen as One Bermuda Alliance heartlands.

However, he questioned whether enough focus was being given to the problems Bermudians faced on a daily basis 12 months since the PLP’s landslide General Election triumph,.

Mr Perinchief explained: “Nothing starts from ground zero. Accordingly, the PLP have inherited some initiatives, both positive and negative, from the former OBA administration, and indeed, the former PLP administration.

“However, it must be said that the PLP under Premier David Burt has done extremely well in the relatively short period of 12 months articulating, and to a reasonable extent, achieving or delivering the election platform initiatives it said it would deliver.

“Added to that, the PLP, during this lengthy honeymoon period, has enjoyed electoral successes in legacy constituencies that heretofore would have run labour out of their neighbourhoods on a rail.

“There appears to be a curious shift in the demographics, favourably one hopes, towards the PLP’s voting base.”

Mr Perinchief added the passing of time would bring expectations and new questions for the Government to deal with.

He asked: “Here’s the rub, as things are settling down and the rubber is beginning to meet the road. Can, in an acceptable timeframe, other election platform promises feasibly, economically, or realistically be delivered, given the continued reliance on a trickle-down, elitist designed and rewarding economy that was severely Balkanised and placed into the hands of 2 to 4 per cent of the population who owned the economy in the first place?

“More substantively, did the election platform identify, or contemplate, sufficient of the initiatives that would address the day-to-day challenges their supporters are facing on the ground?”

Mr Perinchief also questioned new, “out-of-the-blue” initiatives that had not been considered by either party a year ago which had now entered the arena and brought about a change in perceptions of a labour-based party that must “carefully manage the economy and simultaneously retain its political base”.

The former Attorney-General also queried whether the PLP would have to look further into, or even outside of, its membership and support base “in order to acquire the resources and capacity to deal with these challenges old and new”.

Mr Perinchief said: “The old challenges have not to date been scratched, let alone firmly addressed.

“For example, I speak of Bermudians, seniors and too many black middle-class families in particular, losing their life’s possessions and homes that they have built from ground up to financial institutions who repossess them having more favourable buyers in the wings.

“These private banks, rather than our public regulatory authority, the Bermuda Monetary Authority, have the ultimate discretion, unlike other democracies, to charge interest rates, which in the economic climate and high cost of living of Bermuda, put the monthly payments of these mortgages and loans outside of the reach of many of our Bermudians, particularly those on fixed incomes such as pensions and the like.”

Mr Perinchief added that more financial institutions sympathetic to people in these categories needed to be licensed to offer mortgages with rates of around 2 to 5 per cent so that monthly payments are more manageable.

Mr Perinchief said: “The new challenge is the, at times, faddish cryptocurrency craze. Everything is blockchain and bitcoin.

“No question, it is exceedingly important for an economy to be in a position one day to funnel profits from this sector back into the community in the form of jobs, business and the like.

“However, unless properly and convincingly communicated to Mr and Mrs Joe Public, it appears to a growing number of people in the PLP’s support base that this new and vibrant leadership are attempting to out-OBA their immediate predecessors, the OBA, in entrepreneurial activities with correspondingly lesser attention paid to their day-to-day challenges.

“From the drivers of this initiative, this may be good international press. However, such press must be tampered or balanced with how this initiative is being received by those who put the PLP where it is.

“There is unquestionably, some shifting of the sands in this regard from a sector of the PLP’s support base.”

Mr Perinchief added: “On balance, however, the PLP, not only through the renewed vigour and hope its leadership currently has brought to the political landscape of Bermuda, but also when juxtaposed against the current, self-inflicted for the most part, shambolic and traumatised state of the United Bermuda Party-influenced OBA, appears to have the numbers and the time to successfully address the challenges, old and new, and turn them to advantage for many years to come.”

• To read Phil Perinchief’s comments in full, click on the PDF under “Related Media”