The year 2011 saw the first change in leadership in a political party in Cayman.
Kurt Tibbetts announced in November 2010 he would stand down as the People’s Progressive Movement’s first leader in the new year. On 12 February, PPM members at a national meeting of the party voted in George Town MLA Alden McLaughlin as their new leader.
Mr. McLauglin ran unopposed as no other elected members of the PPM were nominated for the leadership post prior to the deadline for nominations. Ray Farrington was voted in as general secretary of the PPM.
In his first speech as PPM leader, Mr. McLaughlin told supporters: “We must dispel the notion that the choice for leadership of this country is between those who are weak and right and those that are strong and wrong.”
Mr. McLaughlin, a lawyer and former education minister, said at that meeting the PPM would redefine itself during the following two years as the political party of inclusion and would work to include young voters and expatriates in Caymanian politics.
He said he believed that a perception among the public of the PPM as being “anti-expat” had been a factor in the PPM losing the 2009 election when the party lost half its Legislative Assembly seats and control of the government.
“I want to assure everyone … there is no bigotry in the PPM, we are only anti-bad government,” he said.
Days later, Cayman Islands Governor Duncan Taylor presented the instrument of appointment to Mr. McLaughlin as the new Leader of the Opposition at the Legislative Assembly.
Mr. McLaughlin was first elected to the Legislative Assembly in 2000 and following the government “coup”, became a founding member of the People’s Progressive Movement. The PPM were voted into power in 2005 for four years.
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