Unbiased look at the Sint Maarten Elections
It will be interesting to see whether a Central Committee meeting called for Tuesday (see related article) leads to anything tangible. Three Members of Parliament (MPs) of the incoming UP/De Weever/Marlin-Romeo coalition want to discuss “discrepancies†surrounding the August 29 election.
Of course, objections were handled already during the customary post-election session of the Main Voting Bureau, when votes listed as invalid were re-examined and, where applicable, added to the tallies of the respective politicians. Readers will recall that as a result UP’s Johan Leonard tied with co-candidate Maria Buncamper-Molanus and – due to his higher position on the party’s list – earned a seat in the legislature instead of her.
Some of the issues mentioned by the three parliamentarians include the prison polling station, usage of foreign identification for voting purposes, discrepancies in ballot-counting at specific polling stations, the lack of privacy when supporting candidate lists and discrepancies in information given the political parties related to the placement of campaign materials.
Truth be told, one would have admit that not all of these matters went smoothly in St. Maarten’s first election as a country to choose its legislature directly, as the prior vote four years ago actually was for an expanded Island Council that was transformed into Parliament on 10-10-10. There are surely lessons to be learned from this latest experience, for the Main Voting Bureau and Civil Registry that both have been invited to Tuesday’s meeting, but also for others.
However, the election result stands and any change in that sense definitely should be ruled out even before the debate begins, because of the obvious consequences. After all, there is currently already enough uncertainty regarding the governing of the Dutch side and any doubts regarding the outcome at this point merely would create more chaos.
If the intention is to improve from now on, that’s fine, but one has to keep in mind that despite all the talk of electoral reform in Parliament before the most recent campaign started, nothing much happened in the end. Rather than just words, action long before people are asked again to go to the polls is what can make a difference for the future.
