Kim Swan Comments On Cannonier Resignation
Craig Cannonier’s “meteoric 17 month rise to Premier has been riddled with controversy and “his Cabinet and the blindly compliant OBA backbench must take responsibility for their part,” former Opposition Leader Kim Swan said following the resignation of former Premier Craig Cannonier.
Late last night [May 19] Craig Cannonier resigned after almost 18 months as Premier, with Michael Dunkley set to be sworn-in as the new Premier later this morning.
Mr. Cannonier had been coming under increasing fire for his actions surrounding the “JetGate” issue, and the OBA inner circle spent this weekend huddled up in emergency meetings, which are understood to have seen Mr. Cannnonier receive heavy pressure to step down.
Mr. Cannonier — who will remain an MP — said “nothing illegal was done, but I accept there was a failure over time to be completely transparent.”
Speaking after the resignation, Mr. Swan said, “The resignation by Premier Craig Cannonier signals a tragic conclusion to a political experiment by the Mark Pettingill, Shawn Crockwell, Michael Fahy who among others founded the Bermuda Democratic Alliance out of the United Bermuda Party when the party was looking at options to reform or rebrand.
“Their strategy to hand pick a charismatic non political figure as their leader, which later resulted in them later reunite with the United Bermuda Party to fight the 2012 Election, proved successful as they were able to narrowly win the government.
“MP Craig Cannonier’s meteoric 17 month rise to Premier has been riddled with controversy but certainly his Cabinet and the blindly compliant OBA Backbench must take responsibility for their part in a tenure that has run roughshod over the common man, made a mockery of transparency and marginalized Bermudians thus giving rise for marches and protest.
“Lest we not forget that the controversy – Jet Gate – that eventually rocked the Premier centered around Casino Gambling and there is still the outstanding issue of Referendum for Casino Gambling which has spurred a petition to reinstate the referendum for registered voters.
“Ironically, petition activist must now hand over their work to the new Acting Premier Hon. Michael Dunkley who was caught on tape “…..calling it a F’nnnn waste of time”
“The revelation goes full circle and with the removal of now former Premier Craig Cannonier the entire Cabinet is now all former United Bermuda Party MPs, Senators, Cabinet and/or Party Officer[s].
Mr. Swan concluded, “Congratulations to former UBP Leader Michael Dunkley whose long journey from losing the 2007 election and his seat, has now reached its zenith where he now sees himself as Premier of Bermuda surrounded by the virtually the same persons as in 2007.”
Kim Swan, who cares what you have to say?
You can’t even get your own political act together.
Well said Mr. Swan…. “his Cabinet and the blindly compliant OBA backbench must take responsibility for their part,” the silence from the backbench of the OBAubp is deafening. Their silence confirmed they agreed with the wrong doings of the Jetgate 4. They seldom speak and never stood up to defend Accountability or Transparency. Further more, they have only made Mr. Cannonier the fall guy, while the others involved in this matter walk free. This is not a good look. This speaks volumes about the OBAubp party on a whole, that they are far from been honest.
In order for your comments to bear any political relevance, you should be lumping your simplistically monotonous OBAubp with the PLP, as both parties are equal in this respects and your failure to highlight this speaks to the constant hypocrisy you blog. Although there was more grumbling from the OBA backbench, than Bermuda ever heard out of the PLP backbench, their silence was far from deafening if you actually listened. The few examples that I can think of on the PLP’s part was Mr. Butler’s resignation from cabinet.
To the OBA’s credit, they have been taking a very serious look into this matter, more than we ever got from the PLP, who’s internal investigations should have included BHC, Berkley contract awarding, failure to validify the Berkley bond, who thought it was a good practice to hire a legal consultant who was also consulting for the an organization they were in conflict with at the time, TCD, Whites Island, Cement Silos, human trafficking of 4 people into the island, Global Hue, BCB 60/40 exception, shadow cabinet producing and attepmting mass distribution of alchohol without any permits or licenses.
Mr. Swan comments are a fleeting attempt to jump on the beat the OBA band wagon, the overall substance of his statement was thin with repetitive detailing in various incarnations.
Despite what many like yourself like to ignore, Mr Cannonier’s own actions, going back to even before the election, much less ‘Jetgate’, have lead to his resignation and while he is not alone to blame, he has done the right thing for Bermuda and resigned. I do suspect that the PLP has no intention of letting go of this bone, irregardless of how many heads roll, as they would not want to see Bermuda succeed under the OBA, if not for any other reason that they actually believe that Bermuda would be better run by themselves.
Come next session in the house, should the PLP bring up anything related to this matter, I think they will find the majority of Bermudians further displeased with them as their are still far more important matters to be resolved in this country. Especially since the only reason this is costing Bermudians anything is because our supposed MP’s, particularly the PLP MP’s self serving interests in this, keep wasting time on it in the house.
An supposed OBA political club received a donation, they wouldn’t be the first one, from any party on this island; our premier met with said donators, the only difference from the past is they accepted a free ride from the donator, unethical but nobody has been able to quantify it as illegal yet. That sounds familiar. For the sake of Bermuda, move on and get the country going again.
Honesty rarely gets support.
Kim Swan is just making is present political mark due to the fact he could use the attention to get back into
the Political mainstream again.
I do wonder how long will he hang on to the old UBP Brand when it’s been re-named the OBA.
Ex Premier Cannonier failed to relise the power and agressiveness the Opposition has.- he simply underestimated there
capability to highlight his works to the media. — but he did last 17 months.— not bad’ – quite frankly I thought that
he would have last 8 months before they put in who they really wanted.
Kim the OBA will have several vacant spots soon.
And mark my words, “Mr.Kim Swan will join the O.B.A. real soon!”
What’s crazy is they even allowed him to hire personal staff and he still failed as leader. What else did the X Premier really have to do?
Chief of Staff | Dale Jackson | $122,064 per year
Press Secretary | Charmaine Burgess | $113,480 per year
Special Advisor | Donald Grearson | $105,765 per year
Secretary to the Premier | Judy Benevides | $77,254 per year
Housekeeper at Clifton | Not named | $35 per hour
Hopefully Mr Dunkley makes it a priority to make significant cuts to this group.
I only see room for one cut, the Special Advisor and maybe the housekeeper. But he will need the others, as other world leaders have them as well.
‘Other world leaders have them as well’ ..
lmao , all of that ‘country’ and ‘nation’ cr@p must have really done something to your brain .
Bermuda is filled with malice. A true crabs in the barrel attitudesde. What fuels this vitriol that comes out of Marc Bean’s mouth. We don’t need another surly unpleasant politician around. I don’t want this sort of politician ever again
Why, is it vitriol that comes out of Marc Bean’s mouth, because he asks questions that some people wan the answers to? What you call surly and unpleasant, I call doing his job. We can label politicians from both sides because we don’t like the way they do their job, but isn’t that the reason we eleceted them to get answers if situations are not clear. Keep up the good work Marc!
Jay Williams,
I am putting you on notice that the Black Party is coming back!
@Tick Tock – A lot of money just for one Man!
I thought that there was supposed to be cutbacks — when I first saw the listed figures I thought it was from
when Dr.Brown was the Premier — geesh’ this is just as bad.
Now this is something to make noise about!
This dude is just bitter he’s not Premier.
Be mad at Ewart Brown for doing what he said he would.
Wow even wikipedia has a fast up 2 date write up.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig_Cannonier
Sour grapes Kim Swan – no one really carss what you think!
Go back to your little hole in the wall – you have no idea what it takes to create something for the benefit of others and you have no answers to our problems as you try to kill gaming which can benefit our National Debt pay down and our youth by reducing the debt we had to them – that’s right – where is your tongue now?
Want to tell the kids that Kim Swan’s plan was to stop the formation of an industry that could have helped to ease their burden so they can one day own a piece of the rock?
Mr Swan…please head to the driving range and hit a few balls. I would imagine that you have been duly fitted for your flip flops as your likely to join Furby in your attempt to seek some form of political relevance..better still..just go away as we are not interested in what you have to mutter.
Are you a jetgate golfer? Pebblebeach
How would he be a flip flop?
Kim Swan was voted in by the UBP and unlike the ones you support pebble beach, he respected the UBP constitution and remained UBP along with Charlie Swan until the 2012 election was called and ran independent.
If he joins the OBA or PLP he would be joining a party but not a flip flop – this man has the highest integrity, he along with Alex Scott, John Barritt they are right up on top for honest politicians.
Any party or independent Kim Swan runs for I would vote for him and Live in #2.
Mr. Dunkley is more than qualified for this position and he should have been Premier back in 2007. If the UBP won that year Bermuda probably wouldn’t be in the dire economic state that it is in now.
Now we can get back to the work of getting Bermuda out of the mess that was inherited from the PLP!
Justin,
Mr. Dunkley is a ‘snake in the grass’. Keep your eyes on him and watch what happens.
Wow, what goes around come around
How is Kim Swan relevant?
I do agree, Mr. Swan is very relevant for the working class Bermudians.
I think Fahy would make an excellent leader. I don’t think he wants the job though.
Would you with clowns like Mark Bean bringing the country down at every opportunity negating anything positive you might be trying to do?
Actually, Kim has a valid point here. Remember the document from the UBP which talked about them going to set up a new party and using black people as surrogates. Well doesnt everything that is contained in that document seem to be coming true? I for one do not want Dunkley being Premier, even if it’s only on an interim basis. The people of Bermuda should be able to have their say on who they would like to be their Premier.
I will definitely not be voting OBA at the next election.
Thank you Mr. Swan for speaking up. As one who signed the petition, you make a great point. We already know how Dunkley feels about the petition. So I guess I won’t expect him to operate in the favor of the average man in this.
I don’t trust Dunkley. He lies to the people too easy. God help Bermuda.
The premier has fallen on his own sword
Thanks Mr. Williams, YES the Premier has indeed fallen on his on “Sword.” Now the other 2 JETGATE AG and Crockwell will soon fall on their Swords as well. I guess I predicted it !!
And I predict that all intelligent readers of these submissions completely ignore yours.
I also predict that any ‘likes’ you garner all come from Alaska Hall too !
Sure are a lot of out of work PLP sheep on this blog….
lol ok
but hey !!! your a sheep also.
just for the other team
thank you plp you obviously have not finished trying to screw the island, clean up your own backyard from the past. good lord could you imagine Kim and Flip Flop on the same team, BELCO out of business with all that hot air.
THE OBA has made some fundamental bad decisions. It started before the election. They put themselves in a HOLE when they abdicated their responsibility by weaseling out of making a decision for RESORT GAMING by telling the electorate they would have this issue decided by a referendum….
Once elected, they about faced and this has caused immeasurable political harm to the OBA.
We continue our homophobic nonsense by refusing to allow same sex couples to marry in Bermuda. President Barack Obama has been a leader on this issue – thank you Mr. President.
I can tell you the PLP started the selling out of BERMUDA under EWART BROWN when he moved the cruise ships out of Hamilton thereby creating a ghost town. Bermuda now has two ghost towns – Hamilton & St. Georges. Brown then GAVE the cruise lines (by reversing a policy) that allowed the ships to operate full blown entertainment in port. NO BODY hardly gets off the ships at night. NOW they have CASINOS open in port……talk about screw this island…..
HOW can any Bermuda Government allow these floating giant boats to come here and give them all these concessions when our HOTELS do not have the same options ? This is INSANE.
Had the OBA never promised a REFERENDUM and had the balls to take the Resort Gaming bill to parliament we would not be in this MESS. Now we have a political mess and what NOW for our hotels? Who is going to take the bull by the horns and also tell the cruise ships that they cannot have their SHOWS and CASINOS open in port every night they are here ? Bermuda never took care of on island tourism. But we bent over backwards for the cruise ships or we caved to their demands or…….
Look the ships have a business to run, but is it the right fit for our island ? If the mega ships continue to stay we must review the policy and at least have them “GO DARK” one night in port……otherwise we may as well fold our tents…….BERMUDA must look out for BERMUDA first.
Mr. Brannon you make some very valid points. I was in Dockyard last week and stopped by Bonefish for a bite to eat. I was thrilled to see your band has a spot there. We have so much brilliant local talent here, and although I don’t know you personally I was bursting with pride. I was only there for a few minutes getting take-out, but I would definitely frequent a business that features local entertainment.
Sorry for going off topic, but I just wanted to make the point that we need to support our own people.
I guess a resigantion is a sign of guilt! Now Bernews it would be very interesting to hear Dacost and the other dudes side!
Or where is the cash money$$$$$$$$$
At least theybhave the ball to step foward and give the face¡ and admit it was a mistake!!!!!!! How many acts was done by plp in the pass and cober all under the bermudian eyes¡, for example the Barkely INstitute, the dock on dockyard , the tcd new istalations, the twin bridge at dockyard without a contract…and go on and on!!!! You really plp forget very fast how much you screw up bda.
As today’s,”youth” often say Turtle, “Word”! They,(the P.L.P.)have quite a few “skeletons” in their own closet to be revealed before gaining my (or numerous others) trust ever again!