It is somewhat surprising that Cayman’s Premier Alden McLaughlin, who had looked every inch a statesman and had seemed to have learnt from his party’s big mistake last time around of refusing to listen even to their supporters let alone the rest of the country, has dug himself one giant hole.

I am referring again to his seeming stubbornness and ill advised refusal to address the One Man One Vote (OMOV) issue.

The Progressives (PPM) campaigned vigorously on the One Man, One Vote that well over 90% of the world uses.

The failure of ex-premier McKeeva Bush to realise the Cayman Islands wanted the OMOV and decided to fight it was one of the major reasons for his party’s removal.

A party is there to represent the people and when they campaign for a major policy they know the country wants, for them to now ignore it, and say they now have doubts, and now they want more time, and now it’s not even in this year’s plans to address the issue, they are walking on a tight rope to disaster.

Even two government members have raised the issue – Al Suckoo and Roy McTaggart.

Unless OMOV is instigated this year there will be no time for it to be in place for 2017 and that is looking extremely likely and that will spell DOOM to the PPM no matter what they accomplish.

The backpedalling on the DUMP, no matter all the protestations and drum banging and crying from Minister Osbourne Bodden, is having no affect on Cayman’s public except shaking of heads and finger wagging with cries of “I told you so”.

No decisions and calling for more studies and big government employees filled committees will not wash anymore. The country has had enough. We want action. The time for talking is over and a plan when that action is going to happen is needed now.

We know many campaign promises are broken but I have never seen one ever like the OMOV promise that goes to the roots of our democratic rights – the way we vote – be immediately discarded.

How can the party leader now say that he did not have the full support of his entire government and he would not push through voting reform without consensus, when it was in the number one spot in not only the PPM’s manifesto but in the other members – the C4C’s manifesto that wasn’t actually called a manifesto!

During the campaign on the OMOV referendum in 2012 McLaughlin actually said the referendum would by hijacked by the UDP government and he said the only way to ensure that ‘one person, one vote’ would be introduced in Cayman was to elect a PPM government!

In the published Legislative Programme for the 2014/15 financial year, there are over 50 legislative amendments and new laws the Progressives plan to bring to the LA, but no mention of the elections law.

McLaughlin’s other members and the supporters he trusts had better make him change his ways or they will ALL be walking that tightrope with no safety net.