Sir Alden warns ‘inexperience invites disaster’
(CNS): After 25 years representing the people of George Town and Red Bay, Speaker Sir Alden McLaughlin said Thursday that he was leaving politics satisfied he had finally achieved the last element of Cayman’s constitutional reform, referring to a motion to modernise Standing Orders (the rule book governing parliamentary procedures and conventions) that was supported by the House.
However, the retiring MP also issued a warning about the dismantling of the parliamentary system with the experiment of independents and said it now faced “the experiment of the inexperienced”, which would “invite disaster”.
On the evening of the penultimate sitting of parliament, McLaughlin spoke about the importance of the newly revised Standing Orders, briefly debated and supported by MPs, which will now govern the proceedings of the next parliament. He thanked all those involved in tackling the project, which had taken several years.
“I always felt badly that after eight years as premier, I still hadn’t gotten the last piece of the constitutional and parliamentary framework updated,” he said. But then he had wound up in the speaker’s chair just at the right time. “Forgive me if I say how incredibly satisfied I am,” he said about completing the work
He said he was also truly grateful to serve and to be part of getting things done that he had always wanted to do. However, the former leader also raised some concerns about what was coming next for the parliament and the country.
McLaughlin pointed out that while politics is confrontational by definition, as having an opposition and the government is part of the checks and balances. He said that “things can get quite hostile at times”, but the representatives are a fraternity “in this beautiful brutal, business called politics”.
The speaker told his colleagues that he had some concerns about the upcoming election even though he would not be running.
“I’ve been distressed for quite some time seeing what I felt was the dismantling of the parliamentary system with this experiment of independents. I am now becoming distressed again by what I see as the experiment of the inexperienced.”
Even though, as speaker of the House, his voice as an opposition member had been shut down, he had always put country above other political considerations.
“I believe I can say with some credibility now that to elect a majority to this House on 30 April who consist principally of inexperienced people, I don’t care how smart and successful they’ve been elsewhere, is to invite disaster upon Cayman,” McLaughlin said.
“I could never understand why people believe that you have to have all of these years of education and training and experience to become a good doctor, a good lawyer, a good accountant or a good builder, but with politics, it doesn’t matter what you did before — all of a sudden you get elected and you expect to become premier with not one hour of political experience. It is to invite disaster upon our country to go down that road,” the retiring speaker said.
He pointed out that it was important for new people to run for office, but political inexperience needed to be mixed with experience, given that five MPs are retiring from the House.
In addition to McLaughlin, three other members of the PPM are also stepping down. Moses Kirkconnell is giving up his seat on Cayman Brac West and Little Cayman after twenty years in parliament, while Barbara Connolly and David Wight will also be retiring after two terms representing George Town South and West, respectively.
During this meeting, Premier Juliana O’Connor-Connolly
Juliana O'Connor-Connolly (CBE incumbent) is running with the PPM. She is the current premier and has been minister of education since May 2017. More, who was first elected in 1996, once again stated that she would be retiring and giving up her Cayman Brac East seat. This means that, whatever the outcome of the elections, the Sister Islands will have two new MPs.
“We do need a constant influx of new, bright, fresh people. But there needs to be a proper mix. I hope the country does the right thing in that regard. There are five empty seats coming up… five of us who are retiring from politics. The country needs to retain some significant number of the experienced people.
“I don’t want to seem immodest… but the loss of institutional knowledge of five of us more senior representatives is going to hit very hard, so we need, as a people, as a country, to keep some of the experience in here,” he added.
Although he did not spell it out, it was clear that McLaughlin was referring to the emergence of the Cayman Islands National Party led by Dan Scott
Dan Scott (CBE candidate) is the leader of the Cayman Islands National Party. He was EY regional manager until his retirement in June 2023. More.
None of the eleven CINP candidates have ever served as MPs. Some have hit the hustings before but were unsuccessful and some have served on political boards. Nicknamed the ‘elites’ by several MPs, the party is largely a group of business owners and former corporate executives.
Although in the past, Cayman Islands politics was dominated by business leaders, this is the first time in modern politics that a full party has emerged without a single member ever having been elected before.
CNS has reached out to Scott to offer him the opportunity to respond to the speaker’s comments.
Check out the CNS Election Section interactive map to see who is running in each constituency.
See the list of candidates and their party affiliations here.
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Change writes: Every constituency has the same issue when their MP becomes a minister. It is not that they stop caring about their area, but Cabinet members have no choice but to tackle issues at national level, and that takes budget, meetings, reports, travel, conference calls, sitting with lawyers to streamline bills and laws — all […]
Don’t let the door hit all of you on the way out! Good riddance!
Very Rich coming from him who did not put in place a proper succession plan and then just quit.
His great experience cause us 2 over run high schools by only 120 milloon.
Being the party that sold the ci government land to the ritz for 35,000 per acre instead of keeping it or sellinv it to caymanians
Oh yeh experience.
Go long and stay far.
Good riddance
This potential catastrophe is another result of single member constituencies. Thanks to Sir Alden.
No truer words have been spoken Yoda!
I did not like the way that Saunders and M. Bush and a couple others put down Scott and his new party. Leave that kind of trash talking for your dirty campaigns. Tax payers do not pay you people to use Parliament time to disparage others who have the same constitutional right as unnah to run for office! It is disgraceful and unbecoming. You all abuse parliamentary privilege. We do not pay you to go on like bullies. Do that on your own time.
Thank you for service. I do not agree with many PPM policies, but you managed to serve with minimum scandal which to me, is commendable. As for future candidates, I strongly encourage voters — let’s do our work. Learn government’s numbers and statistics, so we can ask candidates the difficult questions. No MP can change anything by themselves, not even if they become Ministers because each Ministry, Government department or statutory authority exists under a law; no Minister can change anything without first changing the law. We, the voters, have to press our MPs to change policies, but we cannot press to change what we do not know or understand, so let’s do our job.
NO Bonus Cash for you or Any of the resigning MPs.
That’s the People Money you all been wasting!!
Enough
Even a broken Clock is right twice a day
This small truth changes nothing about the damage Alden himself has wrought over the last 25 years
I have a great deal of respect for Sir Alden as I believe that he is one of the few people in this Parliament who truly deserve the title Honourable.
Unfortunately the dis-honorific labels criminal, corrupt, narcissistic and utterly incompetent come readily to mind in relation to others. Electing more of those types is what would be an absolute disaster. Personally I hope that we elect honest, educated, civic minded non-corrupted, people to Parliament and that means some will have no previous Parliamentary experience.
This is the man who led the government, and by extension the country, to the disaster of single -members constituencies. Single-member constituencies is what gave rise to this plethora of independents getting elected and the disfunction of coalition governments. When he championed single-member constituencies, Alden thought it would mean the election of PPM governments for decades to come. The plan might have worked if the PPM hadn’t become the party beholden to Dart with Joey’s influence. They are no longer the party for Caymanians. Stating what he did is just sour grapes and a parting plea to elect the PPM this election.
Wish I could shake your hand!!
To 11:11pm: Do not forget making real estate the #1 criteria for PR. That single move pushed real estate prices so high, that the average Caymanian can’t afford a piece to buy anything today.
What was the rationale for making real estate a PR criteria? The outcome seems inevitable with hindsight.
I agree with you so why ae you retiring at this critical time?
like the others in ppm…when the going gets tough the weak opt out…
two terms= life time pension of your salary….so why bother going for re-election?
Did Alden look to the north when he spoke of the dangers of inexperience over experience?
THANK YOU for your service!
Whilst I did not agree with you in many areas, I felt you held your position with the utmost integrity and was proud to call you our Premier on many occasions, unlike another long time Premier, who still to this day embarrasses us at every turn.
You should be proud of your time and hold your head high retiring and doing so at time that leaves you in our good graces.
Personally, I will forever be grateful for your leadership during the Pandemic and can only hope I will be as proud of our future leaders who will no doubt have to face a future Pandemic. I know there will be many thumbs down for my comment, as such is Cayman, but THANK YOU!
I can only comment that it is a disaster to assign Ministries to brand new MPs— that is why people complain that they do not see their MPs once they get elected. Let them start as Parliament Secretaries and learn the ropes for the first four years.
The PPM installed rookie Heather Bodden in the Speaker’s chair. They appointed simpleton Dwayne Seymour their Health Minister during a Global Pandemic. Don’t believe anything they say.
Anon at 11.16 When was Heather Bodden Speaker? I don’t recall that happening.
Whatever you think of Dwayne and the Pandemic you have to remember he had chosen Dr Lee as Chief Medical Officer prior to the onset. Dr Lee proved to be invaluable to the Govt during that occasion. Dwayne was also a part of the Cabinet that did an excellent job in steering us through the pandemic.
To 9:47 am, when Alden took the role, they voted her deputy speaker and she stayed like that up to when they wrapped last week, but as far as I recall, in all the months since, she only took the chair once for about five minutes.
Basically guaranteed to have new MPs as ministers seeing as there are now 8 Ministers in Cabinet, the only way to solve that issue is to expand Parliament to have more than 19 members so that there would actually be a choice of Ministers from a qualified selection rather than just working with the 10-12 that are on your side
Its the exact same reason that Ministers can’t be fired or replaced for underperforming here, there is NO ONE to replace them and Government majorities often hang on one or two members
If you want a Parliament and Cabinet that is run in a mature way – we need more than a town council level of membership