It is no secret I am a huge supporter of the OMOV campaign and so is our Publisher, Joan (Watler) Wilson.

I deliberately included Joan’s maiden name in brackets, because when I spoke to one of the OMOV organisers expressing our support and help, he said he had noticed how both of us had settled into Cayman’s community.

I am an outsider and have only lived here for thirty years but Joan is a Caymanian and her family goes right back to the first two settlers here, the Boddens and Watlers. Yes, we have settled into the community.

OMOV moved on without our help and that is their right, although we both find it mystifying. Their snub has not stopped us campaigning for the OMOV but what we have seen of the campaign has left us bewildered.

I am not one for pulling my punches so I have to say it is, in my opinion, AWFUL!

Is anyone any wiser why we will be better off with OMOV over the system we have now from the OMOV advertising campaign?

iNews has asked Cayman residents the simple question, “Why is OMOV better for Cayman?” The answers vary and the majority doesn’t really know, but the most popular is that the majority of countries adopt OMOV. USA and UK are the widely named countries.

However, that is not a good enough reason.

The government have not done much advertising as yet against their own referendum except to say “Do you want to give up your votes?” It’s short and everyone understands it. Unless you live in East End or North Side you will be giving up 1, 2 or 3 votes depending upon what district you live in. The MLAs making the loudest noise for OMOV already have OMOV and have always had OMOV.  Ezzard Miller in North Side and Arden McLean in East End. This point has not been lost on the government.

The OMOV slogan is “Be one of 8,000”. That’s the number of votes it will take to win the vote on whether Cayman should have all single member constituencies with OMOV.

Does that make me want to be one of 8,000? No. It doesn’t light a fire in my belly and it doesn’t tell me why it’s OK for me to give up some of my votes I have at the moment.

The slogan misses the BIGGEST stumbling block the OMOV has that puts the odds on the government winning.

IF YOU DON’T COME OUT AND VOTE YOU ARE VOTING NO!!!!!!!

At the moment you are registered as a “NO” to the OMOV. You have already been counted. So you MUST physically by one means or another come out from your comfort zone and vote. 8,000 of you must get up and find your way to your voting station and answer the question on the ballot paper that you want OMOV. If you don’t you have been recorded as voting “no”.

That is the message I would have been hammering home NOW!! It’s a public holiday. How many of the OMOV potential voters will even be here?

Have all the very crafty (and deviously clever) “roadblocks” government have legally put in the way of the OMOV being successful been cried out as “foul”? If I had any doubts that OMOV was good for Cayman, the way government have made the referendum so UNFAIR and undemocratic would make me vote for OMOV. I do not like being manipulated and neither should you.

This will not be my last Editorial on the subject. I will be writing at least another FOUR! And then there are our front page stories on the subject.

Do I think the OMOV will win? No. But I hope I am wrong.

The OMOV website is www.onemanonevote.ky/ It’s last update was 15^th May 2012. Oh my! However, It does give some good information amongst the gobbledygook on the PDF brochure you can download. The one I really like is under the heading “OMOV makes them work for you”. “OMOV will limit the “coat tail” effect, where weak or lazy representatives get elected because of the strength of their leader”.

The “Equality” point is also well put:

“Equality is one of the cornerstones of democracy. Under OMOV system, for the first time every Caymanian voter will have equal representation in the legislative Assembly. Each person will have one vote and one representative. [I placed the bold type]

Well stated. That would have made the better slogan.