PLP returns to power in election surge
The Progressive Labour Party (PLP) has returned to government in Bermuda, after it won a convincing victory in the Island’s General Election, displacing the incumbent One Bermuda Alliance (OBA) party.
According to the final results, as posted on the official Bermuda Parliamentary Registrary, the PLP won 24 of Bermuda’s 36 parliamentary constituencies, with the OBA winning just 12. No independent candidates were elected.
Across the entire Island the PLP obtained 58.9 percent of the vote, with the OBA on 40.6 percent and the independent candidates totalling 0.5 percent.
The OBA lost seven seats, with the biggest casualty being Bob Richards, who was Bermuda’s finance minister in the outgoing OBA Government.
The PLP ran for office on a platform that promised a blitz of initiatives in the first 100 days of government, including re-establishing the Bermuda First advisory group consisting of local, international business and community leaders to develop a long-term economic and social vision for Bermuda, examine at the cost of living on the Island and increase job training to prepare Bermudians to fill jobs held by guest workers.
The PLP platform also promised to establish a bipartisan committee on immigration reform to ensure fairness in the immigration system while putting Bermudians first and establish a tax reform commission to make Bermuda’s tax system fairer and increase Bermuda’s global competitiveness to stimulate economic activity and to create jobs for Bermudians.
The PLP was last in power in 2012, when it lost to the then newly-formed OBA.
