by Zane DeSilva JP,MP, Constituency #29, Southampton East

The Progressive Labour Party acknowledges reports that Jarion Richardson will be stepping down as Leader of the One Bermuda Alliance, and we acknowledge his service to Bermuda as Leader of the Opposition.

While leadership changes in the OBA have occurred six times in the past eight years, Bermuda has learned through experience that new faces do not mean new ideas. The question now before the people is this:

Will the next OBA leader reject the party’s failed and harmful record, or double down on it?

Before presenting themselves as a “fresh start,” any new OBA leader must answer for their party’s track record:

• Do they stand by the OBA’s Pathways to Status plan, which would have allowed non-Bermudians and the children of guest workers to compete directly with Bermudians for jobs, land, and opportunity in our own country?

• Do they agree with the OBA’s refusal to raise seniors’ pensions for 4 years, only raising them on the eve of the 2017 election?

• Will they defend the OBA’s attempts to slash access to mammograms?

• Do they agree with the OBA’s move to cut scholarships, job training, and childcare support for Bermudians?

• Do they support the OBA’s role in the pepper-spraying of seniors and citizens on December 2, 2016, outside the House of Assembly, during peaceful protests against the airport privatisation deal?

These aren’t rhetorical questions. These are the OBA’s actual decisions when they held power and the positions they have never repudiated while in Opposition.

The people of Bermuda deserve to know whether the next OBA leader will continue the same harmful policies that reduce opportunity for Bermudians, or finally admit their party got it wrong.

The OBA may be changing its leader. But until it changes its values, Bermudians already know exactly who they are.