The One Bermuda Alliance (OBA) is one of two

political parties A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific ideological or pol ...

Bermuda ) , anthem = "God Save the King" , song_type = National song , song = " Hail to Bermuda" , image_map = , map_caption = , image_map2 = , mapsize2 = , map_caption2 = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = , e ...

with elected members of the Bermuda's legislative assembly. It was created in May 2011 by the merger of most members of Bermuda's two non-Labour parties, the

United Bermuda Party The United Bermuda Party (UBP) was a political party in Bermuda, which represented itself as centrist party with a moderate social and fiscal agenda. The party held power in Bermuda's House of Assembly continuously from 1968 to 1998, the 47-year ...

and the

Bermuda Democratic Alliance The Bermuda Democratic Alliance (BDA) was a political party in Bermuda which lasted from its foundation in November 2009 until its merger into the One Bermuda Alliance in May 2011. History The BDA was founded on 5 November 2009, by six defecti ...

. It won the 2012 election and governed until 2017. Since then, it has been the

official opposition Parliamentary opposition is a form of political opposition to a designated government, particularly in a Westminster-based parliamentary system. This article uses the term ''government'' as it is used in Parliamentary systems, i.e. meaning ''th ...

in Bermuda's Assembly (currently holding 6 of the Assembly's 36 seats). Since November 2020, the leader of the party has been N.H. Cole Simons.

History

The United Bermuda Party (UBP) was founded in 1964 and won every Bermuda election until 1998, when it lost to the Progressive Labour Party. The UBP remained the official opposition party until 2011. The

(BDA) was formed in 2009 by breakaway members of the UBP that believed only a new party could win voters from the PLP. It contested one by-election in December 2010, coming in third behind the PLP and UBP, with the PLP retaining about the same support level that it had in the 2007 general election. Concern that

vote-splitting Vote splitting is an electoral effect in which the distribution of votes among multiple similar candidates reduces the chance of winning for any of the similar candidates, and increases the chance of winning for a dissimilar candidate. Vote spl ...

among the two non-Labour parties would result in an easy victory for the PLP prompted the BDA and UBP to enter merger talks. The initial intention of UBP and BDA negotiators was to formally merge the two parties, but when UBP leader Kim Swan sought an injunction to block the merger, seven sitting MPs of the UBP quit their former party and joined the three BDA members to become Bermuda's new official opposition on 17 May 2011. The party held its inaugural leadership convention on 10 September 2011, where the former BDA leader, Senator Craig Cannonier, narrowly won the party leadership over challenger Everard T. (Bob) Richards. The party won the 2012 elections, taking 19 of the 36 seats in the

House of Assembly House of Assembly is a name given to the legislature or lower house of a bicameral parliament. In some countries this may be at a subnational level. Historically, in British Crown colonies as the colony gained more internal responsible governme ...

. Cannonier resigned party leadership on 19 May 2014, and

Michael Dunkley Michael Henry Dunkley, JP, MP (born June 18, 1957) is a Bermudian politician and businessman who served as the 12th Premier of Bermuda from 2014 to 2017. He was an MP and member general of the One Bermuda Alliance political party and an activ ...

became party leader and Premier. The party lost its parliamentary majority in March 2017 after two members left the party to become independents, and Dunkley called an election for 18 July 2017. The party lost 7 seats to the PLP, retaining 12 of the 36 seats, and prompting Dunkley to resign as party leader the following day. Jeanne Atherden became the new leader but resigned in September 2018 after internal dissension, with Craig Cannonier returning as leader. After the party retained only 6 seats in the 2020 Bermudian general election, Cannonier resigned as party leader in October 2020. N.H. Cole Simons was later sworn in as party leader on 2 November 2020, having been the only candidate for the role.

Policies

The party's initial slogan was "Putting Bermuda First." Its policies on its foundation included: * balancing the budget in its first term * cutting Ministerial pay by at least 10% * allocating more government contracts to small business * additional resources for police * introducing a fully integrated technical curriculum and a longer school day * having fixed term elections, right to petition for referendums and

recall Recall may refer to: * Recall (bugle call), a signal to stop * Recall (information retrieval), a statistical measure * ''ReCALL'' (journal), an academic journal about computer-assisted language learning * Recall (memory) * ''Recall'' (Overwatch ...

of MPs.

Party leaders

Election results

References

External links

Official website
{{Bermuda topics Conservative parties in North America Political parties in Bermuda Political parties established in 2011 2011 establishments in Bermuda Conservative parties in British Overseas Territories