Panton made premier without vote

| 21/04/2021 | 75 Comments
Cayman News Service
Wayne Panton is the new premier

(CNS): The Progressive opposition members failed to nominate Roy McTaggart or any other member of the new House of Parliament in opposition to Wayne Panton on Wednesday. Following his nomination for the post by Heather Bodden, his running mate in the elections, and seconded by Kenneth Bryan, who became an early backer of Panton on the campaign trail and a key player in creating PACT, the speaker declared Panton the premier without a vote, to cheers from the supportive crowd outside the building.

He was then given his instrument of appointment. Roy McTaggart was given his official documents, making him leader of the opposition.

As the proceedings moved outside Wednesday evening for the swearing of the ministers and Panton’s first address in his new job, it was clear that the remaining members of the Progressives and Dwayne Seymour would be the opposition and no more members were crossing the floor to join PACT.

After forcing Panton and the PACT to fully embrace Bush and expose the deals made to hold this new government together, the PPM-Alliance team have for now backed off from challenging his leadership.

The proceedings continue.


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Category: 2021 General Elections, Elections, Politics

Comments (75)

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  1. Anonymous says:

    That wig and gown make MacBeater look more stupid than he already is.

    • Anonymous :) says:

      To the same commenter re-prhasing his hate for Mac, we get the point! Now, use that energy to uplift and big-up those in politics that are makong a difference. You are negativity becomes boring after seeing the same repeated messages.

  2. Tellitlikeitis says:

    All the women in the house that voted for a woman beater as speaker should hang their heads in shame!

    • Anonymous Cayman says:

      When you vote for 19 to run government, and the 9 PACT needed 10 to form a government, and no one from the next side didn’t want to budge, but only McKeeva Bush … what other choice PACT had ??? Your comment and others like you, show your ignorance of how a representative parliamentary democracy works.

      • Anonymous says:

        To 2.29pm Any member of PACT cpuld have objected and left in protest. They didn’t so it means they chose Mac as it helped them get those Ministers and Parliamentary Secretary paychecks.

      • Anonymous says:

        Didn’t Julie and Isaac join? An outside speaker (Alrick) would have worked or even Arden, Ezzard, Alva, those three have experience and I’m sure could have been asked to step up. They supported removing Bush as Speaker

  3. Anonymous says:

    What does the fact that he gave JOC back The ministry of education say about Panton’s priorities? How dare he treat our children that way!! If Caymanians don’t see that we have once again been set up to fail nobody can help us. Damn it.

    • Anonymous says:

      I know the old saying a bad carpenter blames his tools, but who did you want him to give the Ministry of Education to?
      Jay or Bernie? Or Katherine who is still trying to finish school herself?

    • Anonymous says:

      If JOC gets the Ministry of Education, I trust Premier Panton to remember his positions on education…… making teachers accountable and basing rewards on performance basis.

      They are both lawyers and can get started on this right away so that from the start of new school year 2021/22 teachers and parents know they will be held accountable and an objective balanced (nationalities, generational Caymanians in majority) oversight and for complaints against bullying teachers.

      • Anonymous says:

        @ 5:20pm.. Don’t kid yourself! JOC has a law degree and was called to the bar but she’s hardly practiced. Wayne practiced and partnered for many years with one of the largest.

  4. Anonymous says:

    Wow Alden you destroyed a party….you must be very proud.

  5. Sour Mash says:

    Now the plotting and scheming begins and the cat and mouse game of frustrating and undermining for 4 long years has began!

  6. Anonymous says:

    Unnah damn fools from the East still going to be sitting in traffic tomorrow morning.

    • Anonymous says:

      And who could have been in their place that would solve the problem overnight. so the next day it would be free flowing?

  7. Anonymous says:

    Is that the Chief Justice and his wife in the photo beside Mckeeva?

    • Anonymous says:

      Embarrassing, nuh true 8:20?

    • Anonymous says:

      The Chief Justice was there in his official capacity.

      We have to allow people to function and in their respective roles. Nothing personal.

      • Anonymous says:

        I believe the so called Order of Precedence (or something titled as pompous as the Speakers wig and robes) goes as follows: Governor Roper followed by Speaker McBeater then Chief Justice Smellie then Premier Panton and so on down the line. Quite a thought isn’t it?

  8. Anonymous says:

    Wayne failed at the first hurdle going back on his word not to work with mac…. how can you trust anything else he says…good luck cayman..

  9. Anonymous says:

    Why do Caymanians, who like to bitch against the UK, still hold on to traditions no longer followed in the UK like the ridiculous Speakers wig and gown, so beloved by the likes of Mr Bush and Mrs Lawrence and previous Speakers? Can’t we grow up and get rid of that? We got rid of the Governor’s white suit and feathers because, according to Hardon McLean, it symbolized colonialism blah blah but we cling to these other things that Britain itself has done away with.

    • Anonymous says:

      All of them today, literally, just pledged allegiance to the Queen and her Ears/Hairs, the office and people of these islands…so help them God. Give them 24hrs for amnesia to kick in please.

    • Anonymous says:

      They do love their pomp and circumstance up in here. As long as Big Mac has it on it will NEVER go away.
      It is buffoons and fools that need those things, to big ’em up. That is all he has now. Let’s see how long he can keep his grip on it.

      • Anonymous says:

        I thought I read that when mac was convicted of beating on a woman and being a drunk, etc he could not be in Parliament. Will someone tell me who changed that law?……. or what happened? I always thought that double dipping on his retirement pay would be illegal. It certainly SHOULD be! HE SHOULD BE IN PRISON.

        • BeaumontZodecloun says:

          It’s unfortunate, however the law states that if a person has been imprisoned for less than a year, then they can still hold office.

          If given the opportunity to vote for it, I will gladly amend that law to state that any convicted criminal cannot hold office, however I doubt that opportunity will ever present itself. Why would they?

  10. Anonymous says:

    Progressives had the full opportunity to remove Mac from Speaker and they chose not to for political gain, ironically in the end it was to their polical demise. So when they point fingers let them know that they are pointing it at the image in the mirror!
    No one in their right mind gives Mac right for what he did and they should not. It still does not make one political set better than the other. Mac’s time will come and he himself knows it.
    So for now, Progressives need to go in the corner and lick their wounds. Try to find away that they can finally assist this country in not making more of the errors that they have made. Stop ignoring the people that elect you and you would not be in that corner.

    • Anonymous says:

      It was Mr. Bryan and not the PPM who refused to cast the single necessary vote to remove Mac from the Speakers chair – get your facts straight and his appointment to Speaker again makes sense to the extent that morality doesn’t count.

    • Anonymous says:

      Your brain is apparently located past your waistline going down.

      You have totally ignored the fact that the Progressives never said they will not work with Mac. It’s your friends in the new government forced Alden to dissolve the then government as they said that a convicted criminal should not be part of the government. Those same friends of yours has ate their vomit and put him
      back in the very same position they were trying to force him out of. So how can the country trust these friends of yours?

      Silly wabbit!!!

    • Anon says:

      So did PACT yesterday, they chose a woman beater over a woman. They had a choice yesterday and the whole country saw every single member from PACT choose Mckeeva.

  11. Anonymous says:

    Cayman should be ashamed at the past week.

    • Anonymous says:

      No no no, now that the Progressives have gone,
      all our traffic worries will be over, the roads will suddenly be decongested,
      every Unemployed Caymanian will find jobs,
      no land will be cleared, and we can buy groceries with mangroves.
      the borders will reopen to tourists and their diseases, and all of governments fiscal concerns will be over as money will appear as developers disappear.

      • Anonymous says:

        You don’t need to buy groceries if you have mangroves, nature provides.

        Some ppl leaving who don’t like island life will certainly help reduce congestion on the roads.

  12. Anonymous says:

    I think many are celebrating too soon. Let’s see what Wayne really does and whom he supports. I haven’t forgotten his past misdeeds.

  13. Anonymous says:

    Damn. Now the rd by Roy’s horsey stable will most definitely not get widened. 4 more years of traffic in our future.

  14. Anonymous says:

    Well that f that’s over. Still holding my nose on Mac as speaker and half the cabinet choices, but the proof in the pudding will be whether Wayne can demonstrate that the accommodations he has made on the ethics and ability of his counterparts are translate into real change. We will see – but the events of the last week have made me wonder if I am living in a fools paradise where I think that any Cayman politician is really interested in country over power, and what power brings them.

    Go on Wayne – prove me wrong; that we have swapped an openly cronyist government bound by self interest for one that actually wants change, and those compromises on ethics and quality were worth it.

  15. Anonymous says:

    Good riddance to the PPM
    May they never return to the government benches

    • Anonymous says:

      But what will you have to bitch about on CNS, 7:04?

      • Anonymous says:

        Give it a few days to sink in and then everyone will realise that they did not elect what they thought they did.

        • Anonymous says:

          It’s called voters’ remorse. There’s quite a bit of it about already. And sales of Depend adult diapers have skyrocketed at the thought of a couple of these characters as ministers of government.

  16. Anonymous says:

    Well I never voted for you!

  17. Anonymous says:

    There is an excellent CNS article from March 2020 that illustrates Wayne’s values when power and principle were not in conflict –

    “Panton, however, confirmed his decision to part ways with the party after the events surrounding the speaker’s involvement in a violent assault on a manager at a beach bar last month. He said that it was clear that he and the Progressives no longer shared the same values.“

    Power corrupts

    https://caymannewsservice.com/2020/03/panton-finally-quits-ppm/

  18. Anonymous says:

    sour 🍇‘s
    such a 😔

  19. Anonymous says:

    The Progressives nominated an alternative to returning Mac as speaker as a reward for his previous bad behaviour and conviction. As for the Premier, they did not waste time. I pray for the new government and for our beloved Cayman Islands.

  20. Anonymous says:

    Disgraceful, shameful day for these Islands. This will come back to haunt Panton.

  21. Rob says:

    Fix the traffic from East, regulate foreigners with deep pockets driving up real estate prices, make it less difficult for fellow Caymanians and I to live here, take steps towards bringing back the middle class, create and implement a national development plan. That’s all you have to do, PACT, among other things. If you can nail these issues that Caymanians care about the most, you’ll get 8 years.

    • Anonymous says:

      What’s hilarious is you are probably a CNN viewing anti-Trump but when it comes to your own country it’s regulate foreigners and Caymanians first. Hypocrite. At least Cayman has 100% legal Immigration and foreigners bring billions of capital and jobs while USA its fighting illegal Immigration. Big difference

    • Anonymous says:

      Also, 6:31, totally change up the chairmanship and membership of the Central Planning Authority to signify REAL change and satisfy the criticisms of at least three present and past auditor generals about conflict of interest. My bet is it will not happen. When they get into power and realise bitching at the incumbents is easy but governing is not so easy, things will proceed pretty much as before.

    • Anonymous says:

      Right – because the abuse of women is not an issue at all

  22. Anonymous says:

    As they should. GO WAYNE AND PACT!

  23. Anonymous says:

    Uncontested. 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

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