Juliana O’Connor-Connolly

Juliana Yvonne O’Connor-Connolly (PPM): Cayman Brac East (incumbent)
Premier and Minister for Finance & Economic Development, Education, District Administration & Lands, Financial Services & Commerce, Health, and Cabinet Office

Biography:

O’Connor-Connolly was first elected to the Legislative Assembly in 1996 (having run unsuccessfully in 1992) for the two-seat constituency of Cayman Brac and Little Cayman. She has served continuously ever since, winning seven consecutive campaigns. She is the first and only woman so far to represent the Sister Islands, the first elected female speaker of the House, and the first female premier of the Cayman Islands.

In 1997, after 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 was forced to resign from Executive Council (now known as Cabinet), she became Cayman’s first female member of Cabinet and served as the Minister of Community Affairs, Sports, Women, Youth and Culture.

In November 2001, when Bush founded the United Democratic Party in order to stage a political coup that ousted Kurt Tibbetts as leader of government business, O’Connor-Connolly joined the UDP and became speaker of the House, serving in this role until October 2003. From October 2003 to April 2005 she served as Minister for Planning, Communications, Constituency Administration and Information Technology in the UDP administration.

In the May 2005 General Election, O’Connor-Connolly ran on the UDP ticket, and although she kept her seat, the UDP failed to win a majority and she sat on the opposition benches during the first PPM administration.

In the May 2009 elections, the UDP regained power and O’Connor-Connolly served as Minister for Constituency Administration, Lands, Works, Agriculture and Finance. She was also the Cayman Islands’ first deputy premier, a role created with the introduction of the new Constitution.

However, on 11 December 2012, 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 was arrested for a number of alleged offences. Following his arrest, his former Cabinet colleagues supported a no-confidence motion filed by the opposition in the Legislative Assembly, which resulted in the downfall of the UDP administration.

The PPM, then in opposition, agreed to support the remaining Cabinet members in a minority government by offering to ensure that there would be a quorum in the Legislative Assembly. The governor agreed to appoint O’Connor-Connolly as the new premier to head the government until the general election on 22 May 2013.

She ran in the May 2013 General Election as a candidate for the People’s National Alliance (PNA), which she formed with her former UDP colleagues, including Rolston Anglin and Dwayne Seymour. However, she was the only member of that party to win a seat.

The PPM won nine out of the 18 seats. Although they formed the largest group in the House, this was not a clear majority. To enable the Progressives to form a stable government, O’Connor-Connolly joined the PPM caucus on 28 May 2013, giving the PPM ten out of the 18 seats. Then-PPM leader Alden McLaughlin appointed O’Connor-Connolly as speaker of the House in return for her support for his government, and she served in the role until 2017.

In the May 2017 General Election, she ran with the PPM for the new single-member constituency of Cayman Brac East, which she won with 55% of the vote. Afterwards, she was appointed Minister for Education, Youth, Sports, Agriculture and Lands in the PPM-led coalition government.

In 2021, she again campaigned with the PPM but once more found herself part of a losing party but winning her own seat. The PACT government that emerged initially comprised ten independent candidates, including the disgraced 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. However, O’Connor-Connolly decided to cross the floor and join the new government. She was followed by Isaac Rankine, making PACT a group of twelve.

However, it was never a truly cohesive group. Chris Saunders quit the government in March 2023. This was followed with a seismic change in November that year, when Wayne Panton, who had put the group together, was ousted as premier. That spot was filled by O’Connor-Connolly, who for the second time became premier after her predecessor was voted out by Cabinet.

Although the members remained the same except for Panton, the administration changed its name to the United People’s Movement. However, the UPM proved even more unstable than PACT and a year later, four members resigned, citing extreme dysfunction in the government as the main reason. This left O’Connor-Connolly as head of a lame-duck government, propped up once again by the PPM.

Although O’Connor-Connolly had said on a number of occasions that she was resigning from politics and would not be running in the 2025 General Election, just a few days before Nomiation Day, she announced that she would, in fact, be campaigning to retain her CBE seat and would be returning to the Progressives party to do so.

She follows UPM Cabinet colleagues Kenneth Bryan and Dwayne Seymour, who had both urged her to run again.

O’Connor-Connolly was born and raised on Cayman Brac. In high school, she was part of the “barefoot brigade” track team from the Brac who competed in local and international competitions, coached by the late Gerry Harper. After qualifying as a PE teacher, she taught at the John Gray High School. She later obtained her LLB from the Cayman Islands Law School/University of Liverpool and was a practicing attorney before entering politics.

Controversies:

Weird washing of feet:

In February 2010, then-governor Duncan Taylor went on an official day trip to the Sister Islands. After a barefoot walk at Point of Sand beach on Little Cayman, O’Connor-Connolly washed the governor’s feet. She later said that this was akin to the Biblical story of Mary Magdalene washing Christ’s feet, and explained that humility and service are the greatest of gestures to mankind and one another.

Paving of private driveways and parking lots on Cayman Brac:

In 2010 and 2011, as minister with responsibility for District Administration on Cayman Brac, O’Connor-Connolly oversaw a road paving programme on the island. However, as well as public roads and government parking lots, 56 private driveways and parking areas for local businesses and churches were also paved with no charge to the owners.

The Office of the Auditor General estimated that the cost of this to the government was $521,090. The auditor general at the time, Alastair Swarbrick, highlighted the fact that the paving was unlawful but there were no consequences for minister.

Questionable acquisitions:

In a June 2015 OAG report, National Land Development and Government Real Property, Swarbrick said that in 2012, O’Connor-Connolly had directed the purchase of property in an undeveloped subdivision, valued at $125,000, with unspent funds at the end of the year. Although a Cabinet paper pointed to the acquisition benefit for affordable housing, the OAG found that the property was never vested with the Sister Islands Affordable Housing initiative and there was no evidence the agency was consulted about the purchase.

“Involvement of ministers in government operations is contrary to the Cayman Islands governance framework,” Swarbrick wrote in the report, stating that there had been “a possible breach of trust as there was no evident government requirement whatsoever”.

He also raised questions about a house by the Cayman Brac Fire Station that the CIG purchased from the owner in 2012 for considerably more than its market value at the direction of O’Connor-Connolly after the owner complained of noise and fumes from the station. The property transfer had still not been properly completed and the building remained unused at the time of the report.

Opposition to same-sex partnerships:

During her contribution to a debate in the Legislative Assembly in April 2019, she urged members of the public to disrupt a same-sex wedding, and accused then-Chief Justice Anthony Smellie, who legalised same-sex marriage after a judicial review, of “judicial tyranny”. She called the day the chief justice delivered his decision in the case, which was heard in the Grand Court in February that year, as “Black Friday” and claimed it was another signal of the impending end of days, as she derided those who might dismiss her comments as religious bigotry.

The government appealed the CJ’s ruling, objecting to the process of imposing laws through the bench, and it was overturned by the Court of Appeal in November 2019. However, the government, led by then-premier Alden McLaughlin tried to pass the Domestic Partnership Bill in 2020 to address the longstanding breaches to the Cayman Islands Bill of Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights.

O’Connor-Connolly was one of two Cabinet ministers (the other being Dwayne Seymour) who voted against it. After parliament failed to pass the bill, Governor Martyn Roper used his Reserved Powers under section 81 of the Constitution to enact it.

O’Connor-Connolly, who was education minister at the time, issued a voice message to a pastoral group asking them to “petition heaven” and pray for the people, including the governor, who supported the Domestic Partnership Law, describing it as “this evil that is being forced upon us”.

Cayman Brac high school:

O’Connor-Connolly is pushing for a new high school on Cayman Brac. However, while the government initially budgeted just $24 million for the facility, between the Strategic Business Case and the Full Business Case, the price tag for the school more than doubled to $60.6 million for the overall project.

It includes $10.6 million for the accommodation block to house the private sector contractors that will build the school, but does not include the puchase of the land that the school will be built on.

Sources:
Cayman News Service
Cayman Compass

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