Two questions I ask today and I would love to hear some feedback from you on it.

With great expectations (sounds like a title from Dickens) we await to hear (today?) what our premier, Hon. McKeeva Bush, will do with the three new MLA seats that have resulted from the changes to the country’s legislature in the Cayman Islands Constitution 2009.

This is something the government has known they have had to deal with for over 18 months but again this is another decision that has been left to the last minute.

Often, when things are left to the last minute, and it is therefore rushed, there is no time for any mistakes to be rectified.

I asked a similar question in another Editorial titled “why are we waiting? “

It is not good governance to have to wait for answers. I know a week in politics can be equated as a year anywhere else, but the ammunition the opposition has at the coming election against this present government is enough to fill a warehouse.

I expect government will be relying heavily on its new government television station to help them out even though it is solely put in place at our expense “to educate us” – the premier’s words not mine. It will not be used politically at all this education process!

I wonder if the premier has thought about buying into a news media group? I know he doesn’t like the editorial content of Cayman News Service, The Caymanian Compass and iNews Cayman! Hmmm.

However, even without a newspaper he can control, he might be in luck. Whatever Mr. Bush does or doesn’t do, he has his large hardcore following in West Bay. He also has a large force outside those boundaries, too. His followers are loyal and Mr. Bush is a politician. He knows the ropes and all the tricks. No matter what – the United Democratic Party (UDP) are still a force to be reckoned with.

The leader of the opposition is Alden McLaughlin. He leads the only other party, the Peoples Progressive Movement (PPM). They were once in power, under the leadership of Kurt Tibbetts, made a lot of mistakes including alienating the very people who voted for them. Alden is a very nice person but he hasn’t demonstrated a very powerful leadership. His antics of walking out and staging demonstrations outside the LA has been largely looked upon as childish and self defeating.

The biggest problem he has is you can’t keep being opposed to the governments proposals without an alternative solution that the public can identify as sensible.

When the uproar ensued over Bush’s tax (under a name that made everyone even here more angry and the rest of the world laughed at) still Alden came up with nothing. It was left for some prominent businessmen to offer a solution and thankfully the premier took notice. A huge opportunity lost for Alden and the PPM.

And worse was to come when the PPM lost the very popular Arden McLean of East End who joined the unofficial leader of the opposition, North Side Independent MLA Ezzard Miller.

Even with the unpopularity of the present government there have still been doubts if the PPM could win. Take a look at what happened in the USA. An unpopular president with high unemployment and a history of mistakes still beat a weak opposition.

The only way for the PPM to win was everyone to rally around their leader with strong support for him and for someone to do a big PR (Public Relations) exercise on him. Write some powerful speeches and get some backing from prominent business people who the public can identify with. Alden would need to change his style of speaking – fast and slow – and come up with an alternative plan, that is simple and easy to understand and backed by leaders of the business community, to get this country back on track. Take a half dozen or so MAJOR mistakes (that cannot be blamed on the past PPM government) by Bush and co. and sock it to the public.

Alas for the PPM and good for Bush. A new political party has appeared on the scene except, according to them, they are not a political party. They are a Coalition for Cayman! But they are, in every essence of the words, a political party.

Look at what they say on their website. “.. we will be interviewing independent candidates and making endorsements of those candidates we feel will put Country First when making important decisions.”

Note the words “WE FEEL”. So they are a body who will put their candidates (they have to be their candidates as THEY will be interviewing them) under their umbrella – Coalition for Cayman.

How can you possibly have independent leadership without a leader? And this advocacy group adopts the people they like.

Perhaps they can explain the difference between them and a political party that does the same thing? Both the UDP and the PPM interview the persons who stand in the election and endorse them. No one can stand up and say I am standing for the UDP or the PPM and expect support from them if they haven’t endorsed you.

What it is doing is splitting the vote of the opposition to the UDP government and making it hard for them as well.

There is a major three party system in the UK and has been for decades. The weaker of the three, the LIB/Dems (and they are two parties joining together) have never been a real force on their own. They have largely taken their support away from the Tory party making it more difficult for them to get into power. At the moment the Tory party are in power with a coalition with the LIB/Dems. Note the word Coalition. And a coalition is difficult. No hard decisions can be made for fear of the coalition breaking up and therefore becomes indecisive.

In the days before the party system in the Cayman Islands were formed there was in fact close to a two party system. There was one party under Jim Bodden/Truman Bodden (called The National Team) umbrella and the Independents. These independents were true independents who did not need any interview by a Coalition for endorsements. If the Independents who won at the election outnumbered the Bodden group they then got together and formed a coalition of sorts under a leader the whole of the LA members voted for as the No 1 elected member to form a government. I remember a time when Norman Bodden was voted in by THE WHOLE HOUSE.

So now we are going to have three groups. The present government, the present opposition and another opposition.

It doesn’t take a mathematician to work out that the advantage rests with the present government.

I am going to make the mathematics really easy. Take a district with say 10,000 people and they have to elect 2 MLA’s.  The UDP have a hard core of 3,500 members. The PPM has a hardcore of 2,000 members. That leaves 4,500 up for grabs. Now the 4,500 left are going to be split between the three groups. Already the UDP has a 1,500 advantage over the PPM and it would be unreasonable to think they are not going to get any of the 4,500.  Do you see the uphill battle two opposition groups have?

But, we have to believe the coalition is not a political party. Unfortunately the votes don’t see it like that. They are distributed between all the persons running and there are even going to be independents who are independent of the independent coalition!

So I want some help here. Our present government leaves all the important decisions to the last minute and a coalition that interviews POLITICAL candidates for endorsement is not a political party. Why and when?