Cay: Lovers, not fighters

The Caymanian conservative political nature, a key ingredient in this country’s success story, appears to be continuing to hold partisan politics at arm’s length. CLR James, the noted Trinidadian author, referring to Trinidad politics, said in 1976, “the political parties squabbled and quarreled and lost the national interest in so doing.” The squabbling here of the past two years suggests that Caymanians, already leery of the notion, may well be losing national interest in the party system that was suddenly introduced here; many of them, in fact, are now seeing, in retrospect, the previous system, flawed as was, as more suited to this small community.

Partisan politics may be seen as necessary and inevitable by the professional politician; at the grass roots level there may be opposing views, and candidates coming out as independents may simply be reflecting this rift among the people whose votes they are courting. It will be interesting to see if they make this point specifically in their campaigns as the Cayman Islands election in November draws closer.