Suckoo returns to PPM fold

| 15/03/2021
Cayman News Service
Suckoo is welcomed back to the party

(CNS): The long rumoured return of Alva Suckoo to the Progressives was confirmed Saturday night at the launch of the party’s election campaign, when the former deputy leader of the opposition announced he would be running with the PPM-led alliance. Suckoo, who is campaigning for a seat in Newlands, resigned from the party and government benches in 2016, largely in opposition to the advancement of LGBT rights.

He campaigned in 2017 as an independent, and after ousting Wayne Panton spent the last four years being a critic of the current administration. But on Saturday he said he was joining the alliance because of how well government had handled the pandemic.

Long before the official election campaign began Suckoo had been distancing himself from the current opposition leader, Arden McLean, but had refused to confirm he was running on the Progressive platform.

However, the MP who has jumped sides on the political playing field on a number of occasions, said his committee had given him the green light to join what is now a team of twelve, after the independent candidate and underdog for Bodden Town West, Vincent Frederick, announced that he, too, had joined the PPM-led alliance. Suckoo said he needed to work with a group that can get things done.

He said he had been in opposition for too long, which was why he had “no hesitation in joining this alliance”. He said that what he had delivered for Newlands he had only managed to do as a result of the Unity government.

But in the past Suckoo has been a harsh critic of the government. In his official statement when he left the party, he claimed the move was about more than the issues surrounding same-sex marriage and his concerns ran much deeper than that debate.

“The very foundations upon which we built our country are now under attack and I firmly believe that we, the people’s representatives, must now make a stand to protect those values, cultural beliefs and Christian principles that have served these Islands for so long,” he stated at the time.

But on Saturday Alden McLaughlin welcomed him back as ‘the prodigal son’. He said he was “delighted to have Alva back on side” and that he understood that if you want to get a job done you can’t do it in the opposition; you need to be in government.

“I again put out my appeal, come home sinners, come home,” he said, without naming the former PPM members who have left the party. However, most former PPM members, such as Kenneth Bryan and Panton, are now being challenged by members of the alliance, making it far less likely for those former PPM members would “come home”.

When McLaughlin took to the stage at the launch it was not as leader of the party, since Roy McTaggart was confirmed in that role at the party’s national council meeting on Friday night. At that meeting McLaughlin was elected as party chairman, as Antony Duckworth, who has been trying to leave that post for years, was finally able to step down. But the move makes it clear that, even though McLaughlin would not be premier in any new PPM-led government, he would certainly be in a leadership position.

But on Saturday night he claimed that he has no further political ambition because he has been to the top of the mountain and he did not need to go any further. He said he was only running this time around because he had been persuaded that he should in order to offer his advice and experience and because of his love and concern for country.

McLaughlin, campaigning on a platform of fear, implied that it would take just a couple of bad decisions by McLean or Ezzard Miller for the coronavirus to run wild, though he did not provide any reasoning as to why this might happen, suggesting that they or Johann Moxam would be the leaders of another government.

McTaggart made his first campaign speech as the party leader, touting what he said was the financial success of the country and management of public finances. Continuing the theme that is emerging for the Progressives’ campaign, he blamed COVID-19 for all the things the government had not done.

Austin Harris, who is now clearly just one red tie short of joining the PPM, though he has continued to claim he remains an independent, acted as master of ceremonies for the night. He said that people should watch out and not be surprised when more candidates are announced as part of the alliance before the 14 April.

As she closed the campaign launch, Juliana O’Connor-Connolly, who has now been in politics for more than a quarter of a century, also outlined the possibility of recruiting other candidates. O’Connor-Connolly, who is being challenged by Elvis McKeever in Cayman Brac East, also has a history jumping around the political landscape. She was a founding member of the UDP, then ran in 2013 on a People’s National Alliance platform, before she joined the PPM after those elections.

Now firmly aboard the PPM ship, she spoke of the Progressive anchor being lowered in other constituencies where there are as yet no alliance candidates, including East End, North Side and West Bay.

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Category: Election News

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