Rare chance for Mr Taylor
We should probably not be too surprised to see that the recent arrest of the premier has not resulted in a quick resolution either by way of formal charges being brought or the premier doing the honourable thing and stepping down fully from his position until things have been settled. There are those who say that we should continue to pretend that its business as usual until justice takes its course.
The problem is that there is a real possibility, based on previous investigations, that so-called justice will take either a very long time or notmaterialise at all.
From what we have seen so far, we can either give credit to the RCIP and assume that they are up to something a bit more advanced than we normal people can understand, or that their "case" was not as strong (as frankly it should have been) before arresting someone in high office.
At this stage, with the prospect of this situation limping on right through to election day, the best action to get to at least a political solution which may minimize further harm to the country's reputation is for the governor, Mr Duncan Taylor, to force early elections or for the UDP members of government to replace Mr Bush, as has been called for by political opponents.
Either action would provide us with at least one desirable result, which is to remove what many view as an incompetent leader from the country's top position. And very few would disagree that this one result alone would provide a nice feel good factor for the country.
We are seeing early evidence that the UDP elected members and the party executive will do in this situation what they tend to do best: nothing. But while we may have low expectations for the UDP, we should and must put more scrutiny on the actions of Mr Taylor in how he handles this situation from a political perspective (because we should not kid ourselves by denying he plays a highly important political role).
The country cannot sit by while due process takes its course, especially when it is becoming clear that the course could be several miles long, while the running of government and country, which is already in a fiscal and economic crisis, suffers from this major distraction.
His Excellency must act now to restore order because it is highly unlikely that this will be achieved by the elected members of the Legislative Assembly, despite the opposition leader's 11th hour threat to bring yet another no confidence motion.
None of us may be quite ready for early elections but maybe that gives the country the best chance to lift itself out of this mess.
Traditionally, Cayman's governors tend to be more hands off on domestic matters, but this is one of those real opportunities to use his powers in the public interest. Will he?
Category: Viewpoint
Mac supposed to be leaving soon anyway so governor will not need to do anything.
Cns please mail the link to this viewpoint to the fco so that they can direct their employee accordingly!
Well well looks like udp have been reading cns lately plus their tea leaves because they seem to finally get the message to oust big mac
Only one probelm with your theory…udp cant read.
Ok but why didnt the gov act in public interest at other times like tempura? You people think the fco doesnt know EXACTLY what it is doing? Wake up cayman the truth will soon come out
I for one am not buying the story right now that everyone trying to sell about mckeeva bush. I will wait and see for myself what is the truth so he needs stay in office until they charge him for something
Err i think you should wake up. This place is blowing up with corruption and we need to clean house!
This is not a crazy idea…when leadership goes into crisis like this it sometimes filters right down to rest of society. If the premierthinks he is untouchable then others will think the same. Watch and see how crime rises now as society breaks down a bit
Mr G grow some cahoonas and call early elections. Come on man do something!
We waited way too long caymanians. This man has to go. Voters must forget his hand outs and try to help themselves. This is a big black eye for cayman that he wont move from office and makes me feel he has some information on others which is why they afraid to push him out. Why the governor does not realise this is what is happening?
I keep hearing rumours that mac is being ousted. If he is not out of dodge by lunchtime today then the governors needs to do what 101 is saying
I dont want to get into my christmas with this crap in my country lets clean house NOW!
Its time to consider Independence. England gives us nothing
They envy Cayman for our succes as a financial center and leader
They are obsessed with colonial power and ruling the natives
with an iron hand.
Its a police state seemingly
Its time to go independent
Oh yes, world financial centre number 1 is really envious of financial centre number 44. Just to inject a dash of realism into the debate, over one million people work in financial services in the UK and 14.000 in Cayman. HSBC have 10,000 in one building alone at Canary Wharf (and they have 3 buildings there). There are even 3 "offshore" financial centres in UK territorial waters that are each higher rated than Cayman – Jersey (20), Guernsey (28) and the Isle of Man (40).
And your point is what exactly? That cayman cannot have a successful finance industry without the uk tag? Its that type of propoganda that will ensure we are always dangerously reliant in mother england. Caymanians helped to build the industry we have here and we can make is a succes for the future even with independence.
I believe their rebutal was to the view that England is "envious" of Cayman. – Perhaps of our standard of verbal reasoning, if not our banking level?
That all depends on whose rankings you rely on. For example, The Banker's gives Cayman the top spot in the world's Special Financial Centres. You seem to be relying on a political one produced by the City of London that says London is top dog.
Sorry but we dont even half of what it takes to be independent right now. Have you taken a look at our leaders lately?
There is also lots of other things missing for it to work and most importantly the people of this country do not want it
Sorry but independence is a crazy idea right now. We will likely go through a turks situation first
Great idea. Independent cayman with vacant offices, super high unemployment, bad cash flow in givernment than we have now. Yeah sounds like we should do it asap.
Writer you can put pretty words all you want. Mackeeva is innocent and did more for this country than you. He did many many good things for not only west bay but this country and even for my family. All you can tumbs down all you want because you know its the truth. Stop writing stuff that us being vindictive just because you all do not like him. Yes i said it becasue that is the gods truth. As he always says he grew up on wrong sid if the street so thats why there is descremination on him. You think the governor any better than mackeeva? Think about that again.
Signed a true caymanian. Not paper caymanian.
To – Anonymous Sat, 12/15/2012 – 12:08
Poor you, from the wrong side of the street..
You and Mac both are taking this WAY too personal. I don't know Mac from Jack and don't give 2 sh!t@ where he comes from or that he comes from 'the wrong sid (sic) of the street'. That has NOTHING to do with the way people feel about him! It is ALL about what he has done to this country!!! What he is doing behind closed doors, what he is doing without proper authority, the power that he seems to think he welds, the corruption that is going on, the unfathomable land deals that he has 'negotiated' (HA!! negotiated my A$$), the money that he has blown, thrown and given away, the total disregard of how he spends our money, besides giving it to his WB brotha's, his travel expenditures that are way over the top and the disgruntled defensive attitude of him and the entire UDP party.
Get it thru yours and Mac's thick hard skull, IT IS NOT ALL ABOUT YOU!! And once and for all, it is not a personal affront to Mac himself.
STOP TAKING IT ALL PERSONALLY. The island, the UK and the Governor are NOT against you personally. Get over yourself.
Grow up!!
To :Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sat, 12/15/2012 – 12:08. I am having a hard time trying to convince myself that you are one of us.You are trying a little too hard ;I believe you are an impostor.
He did everything for your family and you still support him, what a surprise.
I now understand how an idiot can be voted in to be a leader.
Signed Not an idiot.
Ditto! These are exactly the types of viters who keep putting this joker back in over and over again
And whose money is he using to help these people?
There is a system in place called Children and Family Services.
But then what does the village idiot know or care about systems.
"Signed a true caymanian. Not paper caymanian." Or as we say "A real racist".
Thank you for explaining how an idiot can be elected to be a leader. Its not Mackeeva's fault. Its yours.
People if ever there was a day to be ashamed oncayman it is today. We have a leeder who wont step down after arrest happens and this allowed to continue in international news. And imagine we have governer who can press a buton to make it happen and he does nothing? Our children are doomed because they dont have much future with these tipe of leeders. Why would i stay here with my kids when whole place crashing down caused by one man.
Wake up cayman! This cannot be allow to happen. All o nus must stand up NOW. We must walk by governors house on monday night and tell him we want this man to step down compleetly. I would be the first out there. The time is now to do that people.
Our fourfathers would not let this happen by staying quiet. Remember people like jim bodden and ms annie? They must be turning in graves rite now. If we do not make a big protest now on this then what are we werth? Lets get rid of this man and ask the governer to help us before its too late
Fourfathers?
That would be the Ebanks, Boddens, Watlers and I forget the fourth one!
If I remember right the first three are all spelling mistakes anyway!
Forefathers, not "fourfathers".
Ebankses did not arrive in Cayman until the late 1700s so were not among the original settlers. You will find Ebankses in Jamaica. It is a myth that "Ebanks" "Bodden" and "Watler" are spelling mistakes. Spelling was phonetic in those days so you will find variant spellings for Bodden including "Bawden" and "Bowden" and other surnames. Even today "Watlers" are found in partsof Wales and in Cornwall.
Yow 101 this look spot on. come out a hiding mek me giv u a likkle vote nuh?
If the governor calls an early election in the public interest then the fco will rise in my estimation. That could be a big positive signal to all those critics of england out there. I know investors right now who would likely do more business in this country if the current leader was not so embarrassing oublicly. The sad part is that Rollie is not exactly a second choice and even juju had her paving incident examined so there are just too many compelling reasons for a change by early elections. I know some people would say let alden take over now but i strongly disagree with that because he needs to prove himself and not doing good so far.
Alden can achieve this without any help from the governor all we need is for 3 members if udp to go along with it because ppm already have ezzard and arden on board. That would be the better way rather than us always relying on the uk like we always do.
I would be the first to sign up if there was a public group demonstrating against the udp and esoecially mckeeva bush. How can a country just ket this slide? We starting to act like we dont care again. It always seems to me that we need someone else when we are n trouble. Not this time hopefully.
Sorry but while i am not strongly against alden and the ppm I still dont beleive he can pull this off. Think of other attempts to over throw udp which were led by alden. Why is he not able to get a fewnon ppm members of the la to come on board? Because they do not see him as a leader. I would recommend
that kurt leads any such efforts and we would see a diference in who comes on board.
If kurt does not do it god help us because I dont see this particular governor dissolving the house early but i hope im wrong
Actually 101 its a rare chance for us caymanians to finally do whats good for us and get rid of mr bush.
Gov taylor wont do anything because he is way too passive. Have you guys not seen how he tends to let things drag on? That seems to be in his blood. We have had some very proactive governors in the past and people didnt like them. But i bet we ish we had one of them right now.
Keep in mind that the choices are those of the UK not those of Gov. Taylor. He acting on the instructions of the Uk not on his own. He is listening to his employer, the UK. Unlike Mr Bush who is not listening to his, the people of Cayman
Agree we have too much hope in the governor sometimes, he is not a bad person but he is not as in control as we make him out to be. That said he must be there for some reasin so i hope he recommends the early election to the fco.
whoop whoop! if we dont do this now trust me. we will definitely see a turks and caicios situation happening here. its not about mac its about cayman and we should wake up and that includes the udp cronies out there. say what you want about ppm but they are not corrupt.
You can whoop whoop all you like ppm will not be he winner of this.
Whoop whoop looks like you've lost already buddy.
I believe that I was the first person to draw an analogy with the TCI situation several years ago. Certainly I have referred to it enough on CNS. Michael Misick was a PNP man and that party has been re-elected once again. However there were many other arrests of politicians in the TCI apart from Misick because of systematic corruption of the politicians and their sidekicks. Hence the need for the UK to step in and run the country.
So far only Mr Bush seems to be in hot water. However I find it difficult to believe that others may not be involved in any proven corruption. It is quite possible that if the investigation widens other questionable dealings could be uncovered although I believe our AG, who coincidentally has gone quiet recently, would have picked then up. However once another high profile person or two are involved, then we have a real problem and we will feel the full force of the mother country. They lost the plot in the TCI and they do not want to see repetition.
I hope that Mr Bush is found to be innocent but if he is not then he is the person to bear sole responsibility of the enormous amount of bad publicity that Cayman has received this week. For a time the BBC article was the most read item on the BBC News; quite an accomplishment but one that is not welcome. This adverse publicity has not got unnoticed in the financial industry . Meanwhile Ex Premier Misick is being extradited fromBrazil to face the music. The big difference between the TCI and Cayman is that the former is not a significant player in the world’s financial industry. The RCIP need expedite their investigations so the financial world can see the fruit of their efforts. In the interim we need no more facings from Mr Bush. He has become an acute embarrassment to these islands.
have we ever thought that the governor has not been very forthcoming on some of these things? i think he has been that way for a reason. i bet if we knew half the truth we would not sleep too well. sometimes things look easier on the outside and we try to judge but leave that to the lord. if the good lord thinks mckeeva must go he will make it happen. but if he wants him to stay we must respect that also because he is the almighty and there is NOTHING we can do about that.
yes sir get this done sooner rather than later. i like this suggestion. now please give me a xmas gift! time for a change cayman
G towner
It’s all very well to talk of imperialism and slavery, now lets talk of reality. the Islands chose their status, they could have gone with Jamaica, wisely they didn’t. They can choose independence anytime, wisely they don’t. if they want the status quo then there are rules, and the governors job is to ensure they are followed. Bush seems intent on breaking them, and as an aside, is now accused of certain misdemeanours. Your country deserves better, and needs proper leadership, Bush is not truly able to provide it under these circumstances, in many opinions hasn’t done so to date, and you need urgent action to ensure the Islands future. His own party is a sham, it is unlikely they have the guts or common sense to tell him to stand down, the opposition on their own cannot, and so Taylor must act in some manner. To my mind, a government of all the talents is the most acceptable, but really, there has to be some give by both sides, and indeed some talent.
Failing that, an election soon. I don’t envy him his task, but really, to delve back int times of empire and slavery is not very sensible!
Good article.
I believe that the best alternative that will enhance the stability of the country and its image internationally, is for the FCO to suspend only the part of our constitution that allows a member of parliament to be the finance minister. Then appoint a real economist or someone whose specialty is finance – to be the Minister of Finance for four or five years…
Good suggestion
101, I am a born and raised Caymanian. I have nothing against the Governor nor McKeeva Bush, but I am very wary of what is going on in my country. First and foremost I cannot and will not put my trust in an appointed subject of the crown like the Governor. I have daughters and one son and I will make sure he is educated correctly about colonialism, imperialism, and all the other isms, and I will make sure to educate him about slavery in the Caribbean and the British Empire. I will not hide anything from my son. I will even educate him on M15, the spy networks we have, conspiracies, and the quiet history behind the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the history of how they dealt with Overseas Territories. These things I can never hide from him and other family members. I will educate and teach these things to our younger generation, because they ought to know their history and where we came from from a political perspective. Secondly, I think we as a people should have had the prevelege of removing the Premier ourselves. I don't know why the PPM didn't include those provisions in our Constitution. In the U.S. people can recall the elected Governor of their state. I don't know why the PPM at that time was so soft-spoken and allowed a Constitution that has no weight. Developers can come here and do as they please, people can march and petition against their development, but at the end of the day, they have no say, and the government leaders are silent. What kind of Constitution we have when we don't have the power to remove district MLAs from office? And the number of signatures needed to start a referendum is too high. In my opinion the Premier should serve for no more than 2 years. Why so many years for a country that is no more than 100 square miles consisting of three small islands? Why? United States, Great Britain, France… these are large countries and the leaders get 4 years, but we are not even the size of Kingston and we have idle leaders in power! The devil finds work for idle hands. Another thing that is disturbing about this Constitution is that whereas we can vote in an MLA, we can't DIRECTLY choose our Premier; instead the MLAs play casting lots like Bible days and choose their Premier for themselves. Why? Why must we put up with this Constitution. Today we have a Premier that we want out and his party supporters are also in trouble with the law in some way, and we have to wait until next year May 2013 to remove him? This is so pathetic!
When i got to the part about you only educating your son, you lost that microscpic bit credibility you may have had.
Independence. It is yours whenever you want it. Then you can educate your children on "What it was like before it all went horribly horribly wrong".
So what was it like before it went "horribly horribly wrong", Pit Bull, and what would your putative version of things be after it went "horribly horribly wrong"?
After – see Nassau and Kingston for details. It will be like those places but with lots of empty offices where people used to work and empty hotels where people used to come on vacation. Without the UK link Cayman is nothing.
Jamaica?
sorry but you dont seem to know what you want`? you want him out but you dont trust the governor. so whare does that leave us? this is the real problem with us caymanians. we stand on the side and talk all day but when we have a choice to get change we complain and do nothing. how about everybodey writing to the governor and saying that is what we want, maybe that could cause a ripple effect to change something.
dude you are right about some things here because we dont have the right consitution and both parties are the blame for that. it is actually part of the problem. im not saying it makes people corrupt all im saying is that it does not allow us to quickly fix issues like this.
When wearing the foil hat, don't stand too near the microwave when it is on.
G Towner you have some far out opinions! you have daughters and a son, you will educate him…. what about them? You think the premier should serve serve for only 2 years, you think the number of signatures needed for a referendum is too low. You think we should be able remove the MLA's at will.
Well in some way I wish we could easily remove the Premier, but this is the real world we are living in and there has to be a process to preserve the rule of law.
While you and I both would like to see this Premier step aside,,,,,, we must be patient and not act with haste. We need to call on the elected UDP Ministers to request that Bush move to one side while the investigation takes it course. Or call on the Premier to exercise any integrity he has and step aside to avoid serious damages to this country already fragile and suspicious justice system.
Bush no doubt has to resign or the FCO will remove him and this will ruin Cayman!