Ormond Panton and the Struggle for Political Consciousness

Three Caymanians, Mr. Roy Bodden, Mr. Erren Merren, and Dr. Steve McField wrote tributes as part of the education thrust on Ormond Panton. In this series of articles, I present these tributes as written by these eminent persons who knew Mr. Ormond Panton well.

The tribute written by Mr. Roy Bodden is presented in three parts.

Part Two

Ormond Panton and the Struggle for Political Consciousness

Politics in Practice:

In September of 1961, Ormond Panton assembled a group of trusted men, prominent in Caymanian society. 

These men were not members of the merchant class, rather they were men who can more accurately be described as ‘of the solid middle class’, known for their scrupulousness in business, their intellect, and their standing in the community.  It is posited here that Ormond Panton saw in these men a reflection of himself.  These men T.E. (Teacher) McField, Warren Conolly, Val Anderson and Anton Bodden were the core of what was to become a political party.

In the formation of this party, Ormond Panton applied himself assiduously and gave his personal attention to every important detail.  To ensure he was working constructively, Ormond travelled to Jamaica to consult with Norman Manley on how to set up the party machinery.  Upon his return to Cayman the original members were complemented by his nephew Colin Panton.

Satisfied that he had complied with his external advisor’s suggestions and with the loyalty and support of his chosen colleagues, Ormond Panton launched the Cayman National Democratic Party (CNDP), later the word “Cayman” was dropped from the name and it became known as the National Democratic Party,   well  before the next scheduled elections in November 1962.  Its officers were:

Ormond Panton – President

Warren Conolly – Vice President

Anton Bodden – Vice President

Evelyn Wood – Treasurer

Mable Hurlston – Secretary

There was island wide enthusiasm, great expectation and the rank and file were pregnant with an excitement not previously experienced in Caymanian politics.  The party executive embarked upon a series of island-wide public meetings held in the town halls of each district including Cayman Brac where two candidates Edon Kirkconnell and Burns Rutty joined his ranks.  It was a campaign which yielded a resounding success, netting one thousand one hundred, paid-up card-carrying members.  The National Democratic Party made history and Ormond Panton was unquestionably the most popular politician in the history of these islands.  His followers made a song, proclaiming their loyalty to him:

We will follow Ormond Panton

We will follow Ormond Panton

We will follow Ormond Panton, till we die.

This kind of loyalty and devotion is the material that many populists use to create ‘cults of personality’.   But Ormond Panton was not a Machiavellian, nor was he puffed up with ambition, that quality which popular account suggests was the demise of Julius Caesar.  On the contrary, Ormond Panton’s agenda was the party’s agenda and that as I shall show was his undoing.

To begin to underscore this point, permit me to take a digression- an important digression in my view as it serves to show that neither Ormond nor his colleagues learnt from history.  The National Democratic Party, although better organized, better funded and with an established constituency base, was not the first political party.

That fact of history belongs to the Cayman Vanguard Progress Party.  Formed in 1957 by a group of prominent black persons, the leadership comprised of:

Warren Conolly - President

William Nixon - Vice President

Sydney Piercy - Secretary

Florence Cayasso - Asst. Secretary

Bertram Ebanks - Treasurer

In a letter to Commissioner Donald, the Cayman Vanguard Progressive Party (CVPP) informed Donald that the party had been duly registered with the intention of contesting the 1958 general election.

The winds of change were blowing in the Cayman Islands from 1950 but when it became clear that to the ‘near white’ merchant establishment that their dominance for political control was being challenged, “all hell broke loose”.  There followed a scathing and coruscating indictment of the party members and there were charges that Jamaicans were on the cusp of taking control of Caymanian politics. To many Caymanians the threat of Jamaicans entering Caymanian politics was a trespass not to be tolerated.  There was society wide opposition and in the meltdown which followed the 1958 elections the CVPP as an organization was decimated.  Not one single member was elected and the organization as a political entity was relegated to the ‘thrash heap’ of Caymanian history.  Complaints of fraud and corruption by the losing party carried no weight and the candidates on the CVPP tickets were left to wallow in the detritus of their best efforts. The merchant establishment had been challenged and the trespass was met with a high-handed reaction.  It was a lesson which should not have gone missing on one so astute as Ormond Panton.

Why then did he fall so totally into the wake left by the foundered CVPP?  Was it because Ormond Panton, being a Caymanian thought himself immune from that kind of punishments as there were no Jamaicans in his party hierarchy ?

Or was it because Ormond Panton the man of political principles and a proponent of equality of opportunity expected his opponents to play by the same rules as he did?

I pose these questions in the shameless admission that Ormond Panton was my political hero. As a  sixteen-year-old witnessing his political juggernaut roll into the Bodden Town, Town Hall Yard where Anton Bodden – a close cousin of mine and Evelyn Wood (“Miss Evie”) two people whom I knew on his platform, I felt excited and even then I realized that I was witnessing history being made as Ormond Panton spoke.

I pose these questions – to let Caymanians realize that politics in Cayman is like  the buildings Ormond Panton stated in his biography that he visited in London in 1961 “clean on the outside, but dirty on the inside”.

I pose these questions too because posterity needs to preserve this history – the history of what frequently happens to those who expect that colonialism, and its sycophants are going to yield to any rules-based order than its own.