Update: The referendum on the new constitution has passed with over 62% in favor, a somewhat stunning result given that just a few weeks ago it seemed destined to go down in defeat. It seems the voters here realized that the alternative was worse than voting for this version. Meanwhile taking their cue form the US, court battles appear to be imminent over two of the Legislative Assembly seats in Bodden Town where two of the top three candidates failed to file a required disclosure on time and are having their election challenged. They are both UDP candidates but with a 10-5 majority even if the court ordered a new election, UDP would still have enough seats and support from the independent to form a new government. Unlike the US where there is two months from election to inauguration, the new government will be sworn in next week.
Original Post: Yesterday was National Election Day here in the Cayman Islands. After being bombarded for 30 days with billboards, TV advertisements, public meetings and people flying the party flags from their car windows, we woke up yesterday to all of it being gone. In Cayman it is against the law to have any kind of campaigning on election day. Campaigning is broadly defined here s0 all the road signs and billboards had to come down, all the flags put away and people even had to go vote wearing neutral colors so there would be no charge that by wearing red or wearing blue and green that they were supporting one of the two major parties. Over 80% of the eligible voters participated (around 12,000 total on the three Islands). It is strange that in a country of 50-60,000 only 14,000 or so have the right to vote but that shows you the number of ex-pats living in these Islands. As expected there was a change in government with the ruling PPM party losing 5 seats and the opposition UDP gaining 4. The fifth seat went to an independent who has said he will caucus with the UDP so the legislative assembly effectively went from 10-5 PPM to 10-5 UDP. The new Leader of Government Business has an honorary degree from ICCI and two members of the new Legislative Assembly attended ICCI so hopefully the change wont affect the college much or if it does hopefully it will be for the better as we will be asking for more government recognition and more government funding.
With both national holidays for the week out of the way we are finishing up week nine of the quarter tomorrow. Final exams are in two weeks and then we have a week between quarters with the Summer quarter not starting until the 16th after the holiday for the Queen's Birthday which falls on June 15. We are taking advantage of that week between quarters by popping up to Florida for a three day cruise to the Bahamas from the 12th to the 15th out of the Port of Miami. We have a stop in Nassau and another stop at a private Island. We have talked a lot about an Alaska cruise some day but Katie gets sea sick and we want to see how she will do on a short cruise before we spend the money on a long one so this is both a quickie vacation and a test.
