Dwayne ‘John John’ Seymour will be running with the People’s Progressive Movement in the upcoming general election, the party announced Tuesday morning.
The announcement comes a day after Deputy Premier Kenneth Bryan declared he would also be contesting the election as a member of the PPM. A number of other candidates are expected to be announced by the PPM in coming days.
Seymour, MP for Bodden Town East, is currently the minister of border control, labour and culture in the United People’s Movement administration. While he has never run as an official PPM candidate before, he was allied with the party when he ran as an independent in 2021, before joining Wayne Panton’s team to form the PACT government.
Following the 2017 election, Seymour, in which he had again run as an independent, joined the PPM government to take up the role of minister of housing, environment, culture and health. He successfully ran as a candidate in McKeeva Bush’s now-defunct United Democratic Party in 2009, in which he served as a backbencher.
He then briefly became a Cabinet minister in the interim People’s National Alliance administration, led by Juliana O’Connor-Connolly in 2013, following the ousting of Bush as government leader. In the May 2013 general election, he ran with the PNA, but failed to secure a seat.
In the PPM statement Tuesday, Seymour said he was “ready to work alongside a team that my constituents have approved me to work with two times consecutively, and I am confident we can deliver real results for Cayman and Caymanians”.
Taking an apparent jab at recently formed parties – which include André Ebanks’ The Caymanian Community Party and Dan Scott’s Cayman Islands National Party – Seymour said, “The PPM is the only party in this election that has been in existence for over twenty years, other parties have been formed out of convenience just before the elections.”
Seymour lauded the PPM for keeping a “strong structure” while in opposition, stating, “in this election they have responded to all of the critics by announcing a renewed vision with a mix of new and experienced candidates and this bodes well for the future of the Country to keep the good ship Cayman moving ahead with strength and unity”.
In the statement, PPM leader Joey Hew said Seymour’s “leadership and experience will help us build a stronger, more stable Cayman”.
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