Even though I was expecting some shocks after yesterday’s election I was right there were. The shocks were not where I expected they would be.

I knew Kenneth Bryan was going to be tough. He had been campaigning for over a year, He had even spoken to me but I told him I had now moved to Newlands and moved on.

My wife, Joan four years ago had sponsored Marco Archer, who she had worked with when he was a junior and she was the senior Trust/Corporate Officer at the bank they were both working at. She also lived just around the corner from his home.

Even though we were now at Newlands she had offered to help him still if needed and I had urged both him and Leader Alden McLaughlin to use her as she is an excellent speaker, well known in the community, respected, daughter of Major Roddy Watler who was Chief of Police for 33 years here and her family roots go back to the first two families on the Island – the Boddens and Watlers. For reasons I cannot fathom Joan was not used in any capacity. Perhaps Alden noticed how Joan dealt single-handedly with the drunk who was causing a disturbance at the last Progressives Meeting last Tuesday night!

I warned Marco to take Kenneth very seriously. He didn’t, although he might say he did.

Marco’s performance on the radio show where he blasted the radio station and hosts was terrible PR. He had every right to stop Kenneth from asking his questions but the way he did it was unprofessional. He actually had Kenneth in the palm of his hands but let him go and made Kenneth look the injured party. To compound it ten days later, and a week is a very long time in politics, he brought the whole incident back up to apologise for what he said thus telling everybody he was the guilty party.

Kenneth knows radio and television and he has charism that Marco doesn’t. Marco has immense skills and if anyone deserved to be re-elected he did. No one in the history of our financial ministers have ever been so qualified and worked harder than Marco. Even with his awful campaign, that came very late in the game, it should still have carried him through. People decided on looks, good talk, extravagant promises from a very inexperienced candidate over someone with the highest of all track records and given this country a sound financial basis after taking over a financial mess. A man who in the next four years would have been able to provide all of us, especially the poor with a much higher standard of living. He unfortunately failed to get that over because he was having to do damage control to the areas where this government had failed in during the debates.

In debates criticising is very, very easy. The style of the debates made it so. The government is on a hiding to nothing because none of the questions being asked are going to be kind and point all the good things that past tenure has executed – the ones asked are only where it went wrong.

And the moderators were dreadful. The worst being the Chamber of Commerce Forums. I hope they never do one again in four years time.

The other bad shock for me was Wayne Panton losing out to Alva Suckoo. Wayne Panton was another Minister who worked tirelessly in the financial department for his country. He was away a lot representing our country and always leaving behind an excellent impression.

He was away so much he hadn’t got the time to put in the leg work himself to canvass. He also didn’t use Social media like Suckoo did. He never used this outlet, even though I offered it to him, whilst I was bombarded with Suckoo’s materials. Suckoo himself did door to door canvassing early on whilst Wayne appeared once at our door at the very last moment.

Suckoo made huge political capital on the Law Reform Bill that was largely the work of Panton and McLaughlin. Panton took most of the blame for having to make over 80 amendments to it and it still didn’t get passed. Even though Suckoo was part of the initial stage work he walked the walk across the floor and talked the talk. We even had the wild claim from him of mysterious persons following him around. It all made for great publicity and put a dark cloud over Panton’s head.

Never-the-less I still thought common sense would prevail and Panton’s hard work would be rewarded by re-election. Even in my mid seventies now I can be foolish. It doesn’t matter what you do, it’s how you talk and what you promise. If you don’t keep your promise when you get elected four years is a long time for the electorate to forget.

There, however was a silver lining for the Progressives, with the unexpected election of David Wight and the biggest shock of the night – Mike Adams losing to newcomer – Barbara Elizabeth Conolly.

Congratulations to them.

The loss of incumbent Osbourne Bodden to John John Dwayne Seymour had been touted but I did not expect Osbourne to finish third.

So what happens now?

At the time of writing this nothing is certain, although there are many permutations.

Tara Rivers could join forces with the Progressives again giving them now a tie with the Independents and leaving Alden the job of finding two more Independents to join him. That to me, is doubtful but it depends on what sugar he is offering.

Then we have the wily McKeeva who will promise everything, even with just two other members of his team but he has already announced endorsements which not one Independent publically shook off.

However, he knows most of his power has been clipped, and it will be a difficult job to control them, if he even convinces them foolishly to make them his leader.

My favourite is for the Independents to name their own leader, Arden Mclean is favoured as he has already put himself forward as such. They will then have to find one member from one of the parties and my betting (if I was ab etting man) is for Bernie Bush to do that, or possibly even Roy McTaggart. He ran four years ago as an Independent.

Then there is also the strong possibility I will be shocked again.

Good job I have a strong heart.

Congratulations to all the winners. Commiserations to all the losers. Four years isn’t a long time to fight again.

Now the Independents who have been elected. They might find it a big shock to have to govern.

We all hope and pray they do a good job. They might also be shocked to find they have a good foundation left behind by the Progressives. I hope they use it to build the structure on. It will be shocking if they don’t.