Unbiased look at the Sint Maarten Elections
A lot of frustration is being expressed by voters about the meanwhile-confirmed latest political twist that will see a UP-led government take office after all. Many uttered disbelief as to how something like this was even possible, let alone allowed to take place.
Some reason that especially as DP candidate and caretaker minister Cornelius de Weever had failed to earn a Parliament seat outright in terms of preferential votes, he should not be able to "jump ship" and torpedo the seemingly-incoming NA/DP/US Party coalition of which his party was to be part. The truth is that the law makes no distinction as to how the seat was obtained.
It's also not the first time, because outgoing parliamentarian Patrick Illidge had declared himself an independent to support the then-UP/DP cabinet almost immediately after being elected on the NA slate in 2010. Moreover, no less than three other MPs followed his example and broke with their respective legislative fractions during the past four years.
Of course, the motives behind De Weever's move remain unclear, except that he reportedly did not get his wish to include a mandatory counterpart regulation for foreign employees in the governing programme to be presented to Governor Eugene Holiday by NA leader and – no longer – "formateur" William Marlin. The word is that De Weever then decided to go into Parliament rather than staying on as Minister of Health, Labour and Social Affairs, but wanted his aunt Millicent de Weever to be given that post instead.
The DP leadership probably didn't agree to the latter, which supposedly prompted the current cabinet member to join forces with UP and send the other three parties to the opposition benches in the process. If this turns out to be true, one should not be surprised to indeed see Millicent de Weever become his successor as minister.
That people are upset is understandable, but they need to keep in mind that UP was by far the biggest party, growing from six to seven seats, while NA dropped from seven to four and DP remained at two. The only other party that could be considered victorious was newcomer US Party with its two seats.
At the same time, getting together within hours after an election result to exclude the "winner" as NA, DP and US Party did, while perfectly legal, wasn't exactly elegant either. They may have had good reasons, including integrity issues, but traditionally the leader of the largest party would be given the space at least to try forming a government before alternative scenarios are explored.
The reality is that times have changed and, also in the former Netherlands Antilles, the expression "win at night but lose in the morning" often was used to describe similar developments. It's a parliamentary democracy in which the legislative majority at any given moment rules, nothing more and nothing less.
