50 contenders declare for 2021

| 01/03/2021
  • Cayman News Service
    Johann Moxam is nominated for George Town North
  • Cayman News Service
    Michael Myles on Nomination Day
  • Cayman News Service
    Elvis McKeever is nominated for Cayman Brac East

(CNS): The snap election called by Premier Alden McLaughlin appears to have had an impact on the potential field of candidates for this general election. Just fifty people have formally declared for the 2021 race for the 19 constituencies, the lowest number of runners for several general elections. There are many more head to head races than expected, giving challengers a chance at taking some incumbent scalps.

But there are a couple of very crowded fields, in particular George Town East, where four contenders are throwing their hats into the ring to try and take down the heir apparent for the coalition government, Roy McTaggart.

The challengers to McTaggart, the current finance minister and likely next premier, includes former Cabinet minister Dr Frank Field. Three new political faces, Emily DeCou, Christina Hislop Rowlandson and Richard Bernard, make this race the most crowded, which is very likely to ensure McTaggart an easy ride back to Parliament.

Ezzard Miller, however, has a battle on his hands with three contenders. In this case a crowded race may not favour the incumbent as two of his contenders could be poaching his votes while the forth is understood to have the backing, if not yet the open support, of the Progressives.

Newlands is also a crowded race and Alva Suckoo may find that being the opposition incumbent is not as comfortable as holding the seat as a government representative. With former financial services minister Wayne Panton a clear danger to Suckoo, the addition of the former Department of Environmental Health director Roydell Carter and businessman Raul Gonzales may not help the deputy opposition leader hold on.

Meanwhile, David Wight is likely to be assisted by the contenders in his four-way race for the constituency of George Town West, where Kenrick Webster and former UDP colleagues Ellio Solomon and Pearlina McGaw-Lumsden are challenging him for the seat, all of whom are no strangers to the hustings.

In the rest of the seats there are three 3-way races and 12 head to head match-ups, which will make for some interesting campaigns better designed for the one-man-one vote system.

Over the next few days the Elections Office will establish the qualifications of the candidates, as there are already one or two question marks surrounding a very small number of those who have put themselves forward.

Even though the Elections Office had to bring the entire process forward by six weeks at very short notice, Supervisor of Elections Wesley Howell said that the process went very well.

“Nomination Day activities ran like clockwork today,” he said. “It was a testament to the efforts of our staff over the last few weeks as they worked tirelessly getting ready for today’s logistics, preparing materials, ensuring transportation ran smoothly, and training for accepting nominations. I’m so proud of the professionalism of the entire team and would like to thank the Elections Office team, the RCIPS, the Accounts team from the Portfolio of the Civil Service, and Treasury on Cayman Brac for their assistance in making this possible.”

Contested elections will be announced by Howell on Thursday, 4 March.

See the full list of nominations on the CNS Interactive Map.

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Category: Election News

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