It was the one announcement that had a double impact that sent reverberations throughout Cayman..
The rumours were put to rest on Saturday night when Premier Juliana O’Connor-Connolly confirmed expectations, shocked skeptics and threw a spanner in the political arena by announcing that she will after all be competing in the April 30th election.
But that was just one part of the shock announcement.
The other, with even wider implications - and political permutations - was that she would be standing not as the leader or member of her own United People’s Movement (UPM) government but as a candidate for the main opposition People's Progressive Movement (PPM/Progressives).
Addressing the PPM convention on Saturday evening remotely from Cayman Brac, the outgoing Premier and MP for Cayman Brac West informed the party faithful: “I've reconsidered and responded to the call of my people to run for one more term, and of course, after I've reconsidered and reached that decision, it was most easy to decide which party I would be joining. That is the PPM party.”
The bombshell development sent shockwaves through the political establishment the weekend before Nominations Day on Monday March 3rd kicking campaigning into high gear.
It’s not clear what now is the fate of her UPM, the political umbrella label - but not a fully constituted party - under which Premier O’Connor-Connolly set up the government that took over from the ill-fated PACT coalition of ex-Premier Wayne Panton.
The PACT collapsed in November 2023 just a little over two and a half years following its coming together after the 2012 election.
But Premier O’Connor-Connolly’s replacement UPM came close to suffering the same fate in October last year losing four key members and rendering it a minority government relying on the main opposition PPM for support.
Out of the UPM debacle came the new Caymanian Community Party(TCCP) comprised of disaffected members of the UPM led by ex-UPM Deputy Premier Andre Ebanks and including former PACT Premier Wayne Panton.
With the Joey Hew-led PPM heading into the election with three ex-UPM ministers - including the Premier - under its umbrella, its members have selected former UPM and PACT Tourism and Transport and Ports Minister Kenneth Bryan as its Deputy Leader.
It’s a return home for Bryan, a former PPM member but, according to party leader Hew, not much so for O’Connor-Connolly. He said in a recent Radio Cayman ‘For the Record’ interview that she in fact never left the party as she was still a registered member. The soon-to-be ex-UPM Premier had served as Minister of Education in the previous PPM government, a position she also held in the PACT coalition before leading the short-lived UPM.
Another UPM and ex-PACT Cabinet big wig joining O’Connor-Conolly and Bryan back in the PPM fold is Dwayne Seymour a former PPM Health Minister who came to political prominence during the Covid pandemic.
The weekend’s developments culminated a week of seismic political shifts as an eventful parliamentary period draws to a close with its own drama-filled political upheavals since the last election in 2021.
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