It is an unusual event for me to applaud our leader of the opposition Hon. Alden McLaughlin for at last ending his comparative silence on serious governmental matters, allowing the single independent North Side MLA, Ezzard Miller, to do all the talking.

After receiving the draft bill for the referendum, Mr. McLaughlin said the draft provides no obligation on government to actually implement One Man, One Vote (OMOV) if that’s what the people vote for.

This draft bill will be presented to the LA next month, although there is some doubt if the opposition will actually be present to hear it.

The PPM and Miller have drafted a lack of confidence motion ready to file on Friday in the wake of the revelations that Cayman Islands Premier, Hon. McKeeva Bush, is the subject of three police investigations.

Mr. McLaughlin announced the opposition would be prevailing on the speaker of the LA to ensure that the motion was the first piece of business when the House returns on 9 May. If it was not, he said, the opposition would not participate in any of the proceedings until the motion was on the floor of the chamber.

The PPM leader also said it was highly unusual for a government to launch an immediate attack on its own referendum. Unusual? It should not be allowed and neither should public funds be used for this purpose as McLaughlin rightly said.

I hope Mr. McLaughlin read my earlier Editorial on the matter when he almost quotes me saying: “What the government has done in this case is hijack the people initiated petition process, hijack the entire initiative and have taken it over. It has been done so deliberately to ensure the government have control of the process by taking the steam out of the petition.”

“Steam out of the petition” is his words and nicely put.

He also picked up my point of the government education campaign which will be an assault on their own question.

There is absolutely no doubt government have “stacked the odds against its own question” including the failure of the government to make polling day a public holiday and “setting the bar so high [making it] a people initiated referendum despite now being a government initiated vote.”

I can only hope this outrageous manoeuvre of the government will back fire upon them. This is not “good governance” that the UDP campaigned for and ex radio host, Ellio Solomon and now UDP MLA, screamed for when the PPM was in power. It is a disgusting manipulation of its position and to me, shows they have nothing but contempt for the people of the Cayman Islands.

Surely there are some UDP members and even some of their own MLA’s who must be appalled at what is going on. Are they so brainwashed they can’t or are afraid to voice it?

Caymanians are a peace loving nation but when they see they are being manipulated and their rights being “taken away” by tactics that are almost bordering on fraud, watch out everyone who has been party to it.

UDP you are committing suicide.