Vote for good independents

Political parties will be competing against very competent independent candidates for Legislative Assembly seats in the next general election in May 2013.  

The Cayman Islands and some of its people have suffered financially and socially since the two party system has dominated Cayman’s politics. 

Historically and speaking generally, in many politically independent and recently in dependent Caribbean Islands the party governments have damaged and sometimes partly destroyed the country through their greed, incompetency, dividing of the people and households and/or at times corruption. Some politicians got rich while most people got poorer and had to leave their country to find jobs to support their family.  

Those nationals of the damaged Caribbean countries who have had to come to Cayman and other countries to make a living for themselves and their families know the destruction of their country well and the suffering it has caused the people. There was little transparency (“what goes on in the party stays in the party”) and the party manifesto and policies have replaced the peoples strategic and other plans for the country. Be aware that a politician who will buy votes may sell his country if elected. Do not let it happen in Cayman. 

The political party is powerful and by changing its leader can cause the premier or leader of the opposition to be changed eg. Kurt Tibbetts resigned and Alden McLaughlin was appointed leader of the opposition mid- term. The public has no certainty which leader they will get. Prior to the new constitution, ministers could only be appointed and removed by a public motion in the LA. 

Last year Arden McLean resigned from the Peoples Progressive Movement and declared that he is independent. However the people should look at his PPM past when he was a minister in the PPM government when that government spent and borrowed large sums of money for roads, the two new schools and the new administration building, had no published consolidated audited accounts for its term of government and had an $81,000,000 deficit in its 2009 government accounts. 

In the Cayman Islands, the governments before the year 2000 were independent candidates, sometimes in teams or groups that could make decisions in the public’s interest without having to abide by political party manifestos, party whips and party lines. The leader of government business, when there was one, had no more power than a Minister compared to the vast power of the premier (without the necessary checks and balances) under the new constitution. 

Independent ministers and LA members guided Cayman through difficult times but abided by the law, including the public management and finance law and brought prosperity and good governance to its people. Cayman never had the embarrassment of the UK needing to enforce fiscal responsibility on Cayman because governments of independents were fiscally responsible! Several past governments of independents prior to the year 2000 had short and medium strategic or other plans for the government portfolios culminating in the 10 year Vision 2008 for all of government. The government and the public knew where the Cayman Islands was heading. 

The much heralded Freedom of information Law, which was passed in 2007 when the PPM was in power applies to government and its statutory authorities. However, not surprisingly, it does not apply to political parties or politicians who are not in government. It is equally important that this law or a similar law allows freedom of information on political parties. 

Voters should look carefully at the leaders of the political parties because we are of the view that those who follow are sometimes only as good as those leaders they follow. 

We urge the public to vote for the good independent candidates to reduce political parties’ power and dominance and return Cayman to prosperity, safety and tranquility again. 

Truman Bodden 

John McLean