Premier discusses behind-the-scenes talks that led to UPM

Premier Juliana O’Connor-Connolly has given some behind-the-scenes insights into the late-night discussions that led to the formation last week of the United People’s Movement.

Speaking on Radio Cayman’s ‘For the Record’ show on Monday morning, 20 Nov., she outlined the three options that were considered after then-Premier Wayne Panton had indicated to colleagues that he was willing to resign despite the failure of a no-confidence vote in his PACT government.

Those options were to form a new government from within the existing PACT ranks; form a coalition with the Progressives; or hold an early election.

“It was quite easy for me not to do the election,” she said. “We had a budget that is incomplete, we have authority only to spend up until midnight on 31st December. And, of course, it’s Christmas. I wasn’t going to be the Scrooge and get the blame for going to election.”

Noting that the run-up to an election takes six to eight weeks, that was not enough time to go to the polls before the spending deadline. Plus, she said, “Who wants to be involved in political campaigning in the middle of Christmas? I wasn’t going to do that, so that came off the list.”

She said there had been discussions with the Progressives, but for reasons she said she would not go into, any plan of a coalition with that party did not go ahead.

Panton and Heather Bodden were not present after the no-confidence vote, because they had accompanied a staff member, who had become ill, to the hospital.

The remaining members of PACT congregated at that point and, O’Connor-Connolly said, determined that there was an “issue with numbers”.

That issue was the same one that had challenged Panton and his PACT government, and was at the root of the no-confidence vote. With the defection of former Speaker McKeeva Bush to the Opposition benches, where he joined Chris Saunders and Dwayne ‘John John’ Seymour who had left the government earlier, Panton had just nine voting members on the government benches.

The Opposition also had nine members, leaving the House deadlocked. The only way to break the deadlock would have been for then-Speaker of the House Katherine Ebanks-Wilks to cast a tie-breaking vote.

Working the numbers

“All politics are local and all politics are numbers,” O’Connor-Connolly said on the radio show. “So, once I started doing the matrices and explaining, we decided that the vote [to form a new government] was going to win because enough people committed.

“They were not necessarily happy with all the transactions and the conflicts that come from bringing all these independents together, with no commonality, no party, no discipline. … You have a combination of young people that hadn’t there before but had the heart and competency to do it.”

She said she’d heard there were bets going around that the new government, if it formed, wouldn’t even last until 1 Dec.

“I knew then the task would be to try to get John John and McKeeva back on board,” she said. Both men did agree to join the new government, with a Cabinet position for Seymour and Bush joining the backbench.

Saunders was initially at the meeting, but left, indicating he might support the new government but did not want to be a part of it.

With Panton, Bodden and Bernie Bush absent, this left 10 willing members present – enough initial signatures to take to Governor Jane Owen to ask her to allow them to form a government.

Unanimous choice

“As we got in the room,” O’Connor-Connolly recounted, “they said, ‘We want you to be the leader and we want Minister André [Ebanks] to be the deputy leader. I had prayed on the way there, and said ‘Lord, I’m going into a situation here where I might end up on the backbench, whatever it is, just give me the guidance’, and I asked the Lord to give me guidance.”

The members chose her unanimously as premier.

The choice of Ebanks as deputy premier was motivated by Cayman’s recent removal from the Financial Action Task Force grey list, and the future work that would need to be done to shore up that achievement, she explained.

The premier said the paperwork necessary to form the government, which was presented to the governor on Wednesday morning, could have been presented to her in the early hours of the morning, but they’d decided to let her sleep.

O’Connor-Connolly said her now deputy had also collected the signatures of Panton, Bodden and Bernie Bush that morning.

Choosing the ministers

Once the two leadership posts were chosen, the next step was to put the Cabinet ministers in place.

Using Seymour’s office at the Government Administration Building on Wednesday, she said, “It didn’t take long to form the government, once you have that common thread, that we love the Cayman Islands and whatever it takes we’re going to do, and we leave ego at the door of the room.”

A number of the existing ministers kept their portfolios, but posts needed to be found for two new ministers – Ebanks-Wilks and Seymour.

Bernie Bush agreed to step aside as a minister to make way for a Cabinet position for Ebanks-Wilks, who by then had resigned as Speaker. A seat for Seymour was freed up when Panton agreed to resign “of his own volition, for his own reasons”, O’Connor-Connolly said.

She revealed that Seymour had originally been slated to take Panton’s Ministry of Sustainability and Climate Resiliency portfolio, but Panton had objected to this. That ministerial post ended up going to Ebanks-Wilks, and Seymour was appointed minister of labour, border control and culture.

“Before we left there, everybody knew what their responsibility was going to be, and they agreed. There was no argument, there was no cursing, there was no uneasiness and no tumultuousness, in the room,” she said.

O’Connor-Connolly added, “I understand, even the new composition of the government is not a panacea; they will be, at best 50% happy and 50% unhappy. If I get 1% over that, that’ll be pretty good.”