The People’s Progressive Movement (PPM) announced at their Party’s headquarters in George Town on Wednesday (28) that Moses Kirkconnell has been sworn in at the governor’s office as it’s first official deputy leader.

Alden McLaughlin, the leader of the PPM, also said this would be one of many more announcements and said he was honoured and very privileged to have Mr. Kirkconnell take up this position. He also added that the post was created under the 2009 constitution.

Mr. Kirkconnell was returned as the first elected member for Cayman Brac and Little Cayman at the last election.

Kirkconnell said he was looking forward to working with the leader and was conscious of the confidence that had been placed in him by his party colleagues. He also said there was a need for unity in the face of the continuing global economic problems.

“Everyone has their part to play, be it in opposition or government, in working to make Cayman a better place,” he said.

Maybe Moses will live up to his name and lead his PPM party out of the political wilderness. He certainly has the experience and charisma to do it.

I rarely look at the blogs on other media sites but I did today because I was expecting there would be a lot of support for McLaughlin’s choice of Deputy Leader.

How silly of me. There was hardly an intelligent posting.

Few, if any, made mention of his excellent acceptance speech where Kirkconnell talked of the need of unity that made a nice change from the confrontational exchanges between Premier Bush and Opposition Leader McLaughlin.

However, with McLaughlin’s preliminary announcement of persons who would probably be running in the election on the PPM ticket there was hardly a name that thrilled me.

What is going to be difficult for any PPM success is the Coalition4Cayman (C4C) endorsed independent candidates together with the wave of unhappiness with the two party system. This is going to split the opposition to the current UDP government that is unpopular but still has a big grass roots support. It is very likely a number of UDP candidates will get elected because of this. Otherwise they would have drowned in Caymanian waters.

If I were McLaughlin I would have waited to see who the C4C independents were before announcing any names. If Independents do get elected, and this time around there is a big possibility they will, there is no certainty they won’t be approached by the UDP with an offer they individually might find hard to refuse and keep the UDP in power.

And then Moses might just as well be floating in the bulrushes or Cayman’s mangroves – that is if we have any left.