Cayman islanders go to the polls
Fiercely contested elections today in the Cayman Islands pits against each other two candidates who want greater autonomy from Britain for the Caribbean offshore banking haven.
Both also do not want the territory to comply with EU rules on reporting taxes.
Caymanian leader McKeeva Bush would have a new legislature change the constitution to give more power to elected officials and less to the British governor general.
Rival Kurt Tibbetts would call a referendum on the issue.
It is the first election since Hurricane Ivan in September destroyed 70% of buildings on Grand Cayman and since a a major scandal in 2003 indicated Britain’s MI5 was buying secrets about Caymanian banking clients. Britain said its intelligence agencies may have helped in the investigation but never interfered in a failed money-laundering case.
Forty-five candidates are vying for 15 legislative seats in the three-island territory that is the world’s fifth largest financial centre. Some 13,000 of the 45,000 people are registered to vote.
It is the first election shaped by political parties and clear candidates for government leader in the Caymans, where personalities and independent candidates dominated in the past.
Bush formed the United Democratic Party in 2001 to oust Tibbetts as Cayman leader, saying he hadn’t done enough counter a slowing economy. Tibbetts had been chosen after 2000 elections in which voters ousted former leader Truman Bodden, apparently angry over the weakening of secretive banking laws that have made the islands wealthy.
After MPs voted him out, Tibbetts formed the People’s Progressive Movement, which has six seats in the legislature to the Democratic Party’s nine.
The emergence of the two parties has inspired fierce campaigning, with the opposition accusing the government of corruption.
Tibbett’s party has criticised the government for awarding a £5.6m (€8.2m) contract to remove hurricane debris to a foreign company, saying officials sidestepped bidding procedures.
“There is an overwhelming clamour for change,” said opposition MP Alden McLaughlin. “People want to be rid of this era of corruption.”
Bush has dismissed the allegations and pointed to his economic achievements, including a 2.7% growth rate last year despite £1.7bn (€2.5bn) in hurricane damage.
Relations with Britain have been strained since a 2003 money-laundering case failed because the lead investigator destroyed evidence – apparently at the request of a British intelligence agency.
Investigator Brian Gibbs, a Briton paid by the Cayman government to head its Financial Reporting Unit, fled the country, and the attorney general, another Briton in Cayman employ, was forced to resign.
The case raised questions about British interference – especially after a financial newsletter charged Gibbs had been selling secrets about Cayman banking clients to Britain’s MI5.
Chief Justice Anthony Smellie’s judgment said the territory’s British governor, its attorney general and the police chief all were aware that Gibbs had had a relationship with “a United Kingdom agency” for more than 10 years, but that government ministers were not aware.
Four managers of defunct Eurobank Corp. were found innocent of laundering money for a California man who bilked £19.6m (€28.7m) out of more than 800,000 credit card owners by signing them up for pornographic internet sites.
