Progressives

| 25/01/2021

The People’s Progressive Movement (PPM), also known as the Progressives, was founded in 2002 in response to the launch in 2001 of the United Democratic Party (UDP), the first party in the Cayman Islands. The PPM’s first party leader was Kurt Tibbetts, who led the party to victory in 2005, when they took nine of the 15 seats in the Legislative Assembly.

The party lost the majority in the 2009 elections but nevertheless had a win in part when a referendum held at the same time approved the new Constitution, which had been spearheaded by the Progressives, in particular Alden McLaughlin, then education minister. The new Constitution increased the number of elected members to 18.

On 12 February 2011, the party leadership transferred to McLaughlin, who became premier in 2013 following the general elections that gave the PPM nine of the 18 seats. However, Juliana O’Connor-Connolly was given the prestigious post of speaker of the House, which gave the PPM a narrow 9-8 majority and later joined the party to give the Progressives a firm majority.

McLaughlin further strengthened his position by offering a Cabinet position to Tara Rivers who had run with other Coalition for Cayman (C4C) candidates as an Independent. The two other successful C4C candidates, Roy McTaggart and Winston Conolly, joined the government benches as ministry counsellors.

In the 2017 elections, the PPM won seven seats out of the new 19 single-member constituencies. Following the post-election horse-trading, the PPM formed a coalition Government of National Unity with the three members of the Cayman Democratic Party (CDP) and four Independent members, with McLaughlin as premier.

See Current Members of Parliament

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