At the first public meeting of the now National United Democratic Party (UDP) held at the Four Way stop in West Bay, the Peoples Premier Bush announced that Tessa Johnson Bodden would be installed as the new party chair at the forthcoming UDP conference.

The meeting, televised live on CITN/Cayman27, was attended by around 250 persons who seemed enthusiastic and still supportive of the ousted Cayman Islands premier who also MC’d the meeting.

Appearing on the platform with Bush was Chris Saunders, Renard Moxam, Kenny Rankin, Miguel Barcelo (the new YUDP president), Tessa Bodden, and MLA’s Capt. Eugene Ebanks, Ellio Solomon and Mike Adam.

The release from his bonds of premiership seemed to be agreeing with Bush as he spoke with more calm than his previous aggressive and confrontational style.

He said many things I could agree with and made a very good and clear case for the party system.

Cabinet style governments cannot run properly with independents he said and party politics not at fault Governments needed like-minded people with the same goals and objectives to be elected in order to succeed. Parties with a cohesive plan acted together and worked together to implement their specific policies and ideas.

If a member is elected on his own, he said, the manifesto he has presented could not be achieved if he is the only one that supports it.

“It takes ten people to come together to make a government and true independent candidates are not bound by a collective plan,” he explained.

Bush did take a swipe at Opposition and the Progressives PPM leader Alden McLaughlin who he said was always trying to knock down the government.

“There is no reason for differing political parties to have animosity all the time,” he said. “I still have friends in the PPM and a debate on opposing views is healthy and democratic.”

There was nothing wrong in a large number of independents running in the May General Election, he agreed, but each would have their different views. Some would have more to spend on their campaigns than others noting the differing wealth benefits of some of the candidates who had already announced their political ambitions. However, he said, if any of them were elected it would be difficult for any of them to achieve what they wanted without joining a group or a party.

He also said the constant reference by some of the independents who are running or planning to run in the 2013 election to the better days when the Legislative Assembly was made up of independents was misguided.

He said there had been considerable bitterness between the independents of the so called better days. These elected persons had to work very hard together to achieve the goals despite the situation, and not because of it.

He made the point that the politicians of the past had far less bureaucracy to contend with and government had good administrators who worked for the country instead of trying to block things. This was directly pointed at the present governor, Duncan Taylor, whom Bush has complained about for a long time and at great length to try and convince people the governor is against the people of the Cayman Islands.

“The lack of parties is not the reason why the government appeared to be more successful then but it was because people worked hard with fewer stumbling blocks,” he said raising his voice to much applause.

Then he told the people he would be vindicated as, “I have done nothing wrong!” The crowd rejoiced and screamed their support.

Everyone of his supporters went home very happy. Their leader is back on the tracks.