As she spoke for the first time in Parliament as the new premier on 23 Nov., Cayman Brac East MP Juliana O’Connor-Connolly sounded the call for legislators to turn over a new page and work together for the good of the country.
O’Connor-Connolly, who took over as premier following the resignation of Wayne Panton on 15 Nov., said that Cayman is at a juncture that “unity has to be the operative word”.
“If we’re going to save, preserve, conserve what our forefathers and mothers did, yes, there’s room for politics… an election is on the horizon as it were, but until then we were put here as trustees of the people, and they need us now more than ever before,” she said.
O’Connor-Connolly, who leads the United People’s Movement administration which took over from the Panton-lead PACT government, said she was proud to see the island had a “smooth transition of power” as she thanked her colleagues for their support.
Many jurisdictions, she said, cannot enjoy such transitions including the unity shown in the House Thursday when Sir Alden McLaughlin was elected unopposed as Speaker.
“The Cayman Islands, because of our forefathers and mothers, because of persons in your heritage like the late Mr. Haig Bodden and others… we have common thread embedded in our DNA that we want what’s best and, indeed, the driving factor and the impetus is that we want to leave the stage a much better one,” she said.
As she registered her “delight” seeing McLaughlin take his seat as the new Speaker, she said as premier she was “encouraged” for these islands.
“I have the audacity to hope, the temerity to dream that Cayman is going to be onward and upward. It’s not a panacea because it’s the house of politics, but I can go to bed tonight feeling that the chair continues to be in good hands,” she said.
While she said she could not guarantee that the business in the House will be as “efficient or as effective or as smooth as [Thursday]” she said she knows, as has said before, many may love the Cayman Islands “but not more than you”.
O’Connor-Connolly, speaking to her decision to have the Opposition Red Bay MP in the Speaker’s chair, said there were a number of factors in her mind that she considered and that she had made the right selection.
She said she knew she could be “boldfaced” enough to say the government was not going to look outside the House for a Speaker, “not that there weren’t many very competent persons from the outside, but charity begins at home.
“I felt that, like you, there [was] enough of musical chairs and that music needed to stop…,” she said.
Related Videos
