George Town Central (GTC)

PPM comes top in CNS reader poll

(CNS Election): With 1,966 responses so far, CNS readers believe the Progressives will be forming the next government, with over 52% saying they will be voting for a PPM candidate. While this is not a scientific poll, the reader survey has attracted the largest participation of any online straw polls this month. At 8am Monday, […]

Who will win on Wednesday?

(CNS Election): On 24 May, voters in the Cayman Islands will go to the polls to elect nineteen MLAs for the next four years. To have a majority in the House and therefore form the next government, a group or party will need to win ten of those 19 seats. The Progressives (PPM), the party […]

Almost 39% of voters know who they want

(CNS Election): One week after Nomination Day revealed who will be running in which seat and on which ticket, 38.7% of the CNS readers who have so far taken part in a straw poll said that there was one candidate standing in the constituency where they lived that they could fully support. Less than 18% felt […]

Looking at your choices after Nomination Day

(CNS Elections): After months of speculation, we now all know which candidates are running in which districts. Yesterday was the day that anyone wanting to run in the 2017 General Elections had to be nominated, and while candidates can still drop out, no one else can enter the political fray. So, are you happy with […]

Rate the performance of current Cabinet members

(CNS Elections): The 2013-2017 administration is the Progressives’ second term and the first with Alden McLaughlin as premier. The PPM leader during the party’s first administration, Kurt Tibbetts, stayed on in the government, taking up a portfolio that included planning. Moses Kirkconnell, in his third term as an MLA for the Sister Islands, is deputy […]

How should the next government tackle health insurance costs?

(CNS Elections): How to pay for the cost of healthcare is a major headache for all countries, large or small. In the US, the promised repeal of “Obamacare” is proving much harder for President Donald Trump than he thought, because millions of people who are now covered under the Affordable Care Act could be left […]

Straw poll shows surprise support for parties

(CNS Elections): The latest straw poll in the CNS Election Section has thrown up a surprising result, given the perceptions about political parties. While the online vote among our readers is unscientific, the snapshot does at least raise questions about Marl Road predictions that the electorate will, this time around, focus their one vote on […]

Will candidate affiliation affect your vote?

(CNS Elections): So far, two parties have said that they will be fielding candidates in the May elections: the ruling Progressives (a.k.a. the PPM) and the Cayman Democratic Party (CDP), which was formerly the United Democratic Party (UDP). Two of the declared candidates have said that they are running as a group with other, as […]

Poll: Which issues are the most critical?

(CNS Elections): Over the next few months, an as yet unknown number of parties and candidates will be telling voters about their plans and ideas for the Cayman Islands. Here on CNS, we will be asking you what you think about the issues, starting with the order of importance that you give them. Our polls […]

Spoil it – but don’t miss it

Polly Trixster writes: The right to vote is an important one and even when the choice seems utterly appalling, electors have the power to say so. A final alternative when voters perceive their choices to be completely unelectable is the “none of the above” option. Deliberately spoiling a ballot has an important part to play in democracy […]

Our first OMOV brings some easy and tough battles

101 writes: This year’s general election has many veterans but also a lot of newcomers encouraged by the new OMOV system. But based on the match-ups in the current constituencies, unfortunately too many of these political competitions are just about decided but for the formal vote on Wednesday. If you have followed the campaigns and […]

The battle of the incumbents

Theresa Green writes: Political geeks out there will have already spotted the rather unusual situation that has emerged in one of the 19 electoral districts in Cayman’s first election under the system of one person, one vote in single-member constituencies, but for those who haven’t noticed, there is just one race between incumbents. Newlands is […]

Welcome the gang to the party

Kent McTaggart writes: Cayman is accepting the fact that things have changed and what we were is a memory that we must cherish as it will never return. We are standing in a reality where we feel a general sense of loss and despair, as we have created a mess that we are not confident […]

A surplus on our backs?

101 writes: As the local political campaigns were heating up two weeks ago, GTC candidate Kenneth Bryan released a video via social media implying that while his competitor in George Town Central may be viewed as a good finance minister, he hasn’t actually done well by the people. Bryan used the incidences of mortgage foreclosures, […]

LGBT rights dismissed by candidates

(CNS Elections): The issue of equal rights for members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, especially on same-sex marriage or civil partnership, has been dismissed in this election campaign by most candidates when the issue has been raised in debate forums and during interviews. The language used by many people running for office […]

How would you grade your MLAs this past term? (Part 2)

101 writes: Now that Nomination Day is far behind us, it’s time for the promised Part 2 of grading the other representatives. Spoiler alert: there are no A*s in here.

On that $200 thing…

101 writes: Prospect’s political candidate for the 2017 General Elections, Mathew Leslie, has been allegedly caught doing inappropriate stuff on Facebook messenger. He is running for office and in the wake of this mess, he has publicly admitted that he has “partied”, made mistakes, etc. But instead of repeating ad nauseam that “my private life […]

How would you grade your MLAs this past term? (Part 1)

101 writes: It’s that time again, where existing and wannabe politicians gear up to tell us what they have done for us, or to tell us why their opponents have messed up and how they, if elected, will fix things. But what we think is far more important than what they are telling us. Starting […]

Chasing candidates as election looms

Wendy Ledger writes: It seems incomprehensible. Here I am, pencils sharpened, note books at the ready, statistics calculated, questions honed, but I can barely find a candidate for love nor money. The May 2017 General Election will be the fourth election I have covered as a reporter in the Cayman Islands, and given that this […]

Straw poll shows surprise support for parties

(CNS Elections): The latest straw poll in the CNS Election Section has thrown up a surprising result, given the perceptions about political parties. While the online vote among our readers is unscientific, the snapshot does at least raise questions about Marl Road predictions that the electorate will, this time around, focus their one vote on […]

Where are the Greens when you need them?

Theresa Green writes: This election we have just one vote, and there is only one thing I want to use mine on — any candidate running with a party that represents our precious and massively at-risk environment. Neither political party has a real green agenda and both plan on destroying marine life for a cruise […]

Education should be #1 priority

MM writes (after submitting an answer to the CNS Elections Poll Which issues are the most critical?): I ranked mine as follows: 1. Education, 2. Unemployment, 3. Health, 4. Landfills, 5. Economy, 6. Cruise Ship Dock. Why?

Applicants for the job of MLA

MM writes: Our MLAs like to come forward with all sorts of ideas that they say they want to implement, especially during election season. What they do not come forward to tell their people is how the process within the Legislative Assembly works in order for any of their proposals to actually come in to […]