CINP candidates capitalise on ‘inexperience’ as a positive

(CNS): Since the twelve Cayman Islands National Party candidates were unveiled earlier this year, the team has been criticised for their political inexperience. But as their campaign gathers momentum, the group has capitalised on the criticisms, turning them to their advantage. At its first full party rally on Saturday, held in George Town, the team’s lack of political baggage was pushed as one of its main assets.

As he kicked off the proceedings to a large, lively crowd, CINP Chairperson Anthony Ritch said the candidates trying to be re-elected have demonstrated they don’t have the ability to fix Cayman’s problems.

During the event, the team repeatedly pointed out that the incumbents have shown that they have no real idea of the magnitude of the problems the country faces or how to solve them.

Ritch said that the powerless policies and reckless behaviour of many of the multi-term incumbent politicians should have made them bow out of politics in disgrace, but they won’t do that. “They need to be beaten; they need to be voted out,” he said as he urged the crowd to do just that.

Dawn Thomas noted that no one in the CINP needs a job. They are all running for office because there is a job that has to be done.

Gary Rutty spoke about the need for immigration reform and to stop the fronting that goes on in the business community as he called for the return of the Cayman Protection Board. Despite being labelled as the party for business, Rutty said they would ensure that employers trained and hired Caymanians over expat workers and that the party would enforce the law.

He likened the criticisms the CINP has received for not having experience in politics to young Caymanians being told time and again by potential employers that they don’t have experience.

“Where are you going to get experience before you get the job? And if the experience they’re talking about is the experience that’s ruining this country, is it the experience we need to have? We don’t want it, and you don’t deserve it,” he said.

He assured the crowd that the CINP group was more than capable of doing the job, as he urged people to change the way they have voted in the past.

Julie Hunter, who is battling veteran incumbent McKeeva BushMcKeeva Bush (WBW incumbent) is the longest-serving member of parliament (the “Father of the House”), having represented West Bay continuously for three decades. More for the WBW seat, was the first of the candidates to speak and set the tone for the party’s Caymanians-first agenda. She said the current leaders were asking for four more years, though the people had paid them well and they had failed to do their job. Hunter urged voters to fire them. She said the CINP is filled with people who know how to work.

Hunter recalled that Sir Alden McLaughlin, the former PPM party leader who has been a significant critic of the CINP’s lack of political experience, had made the analogy that the CINP candidates don’t know where the plane’s cockpit is. But the PPM can’t even find the airport, she said.

Retired EY regional manager Dan ScottDan Scott (CBE candidate) is the leader of the Cayman Islands National Party. He was EY regional manager until his retirement in June 2023. More, who has his eye on the job of premier, wrapped up the rally with the final speech of the night, saying that Caymanians should no longer accept “incompetent, self-serving politicians who have created the very problems” that the country is facing.

“Those politicians do indeed have a proven, stable history of wasting government’s money on vanity projects to benefit the select few and themselves,” he said.

Watch the rally here.

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.

Tags: Anthony Ritch, CINP, Dan Scott, Dawn Thomas, Featured, Gary Rutty, Julie Hunter

Category: Election News