Brown's Christmas Present
Gordon may have bottled out of the election here in Britain, but 3,500 miles away another Labour prime minister called Brown is fighting to be returned to office after nearly a decade of his party in power.A general election will be held on the mid-Atlantic island of Bermuda on December
18th. This tiny democracy, where my close family lives now, is a little version of Westminster in the 1950s, a two-party system, first-past-the-post single member constituencies.
Universal suffrage was finally granted in 1968 but the same old white-dominated United Bermuda Party remained in power for 30 years before the black-dominated Progressive Labour Party swept to power in 1998.
What's frustrating in Bermuda is the lack of an alternative. A liberal party existed for a short period in the 1980s. A small group of MPs broke off from the PLP but they all lost their seats as elections came around and the two party squeeze kicked in.
The PLP's coming to power in 1998 was a watershed in Bermuda's history and it needed to happen. Since then, it has been taken over by the social conservatives. The UBP has liberal leanings and is trying to distance itself from its white oligarchical past. There is only one daily newspaper and politics there is overwhelmed by racial legacies and by the personal vendettas endemic to small communities.
Such a Christmas election is unprecedented in Bermuda's short democratic life. Will it spoil the Christmas cheer or give the holidays an exciting kick, like a dash of rum in the egg nog? Right now the PLP is tipped to win, but it should be an interesting fight.
Follow the election campaign at www.bermudasun.bm or www.theroyalgazette.com or go to the websites of the two parties: www.plp.bm and www.ubp.bm
