When on the campaign trail or even outside of campaigning time, you always hear how arrogant William Marlin is. His so-called arrogance is the loudest rallying cry of the other political parties. Now no man is perfect but most of us that know William, know that he is no more arrogant than anyone else. In fact, in my opinion he would have been better served is his leadership style was more authoritarian.
However, after reading the legal document posing as a press release from the UPP on July 28, I must say that all supporters that don't like arrogance in their leader need to run far away from the UPP. The document published by the UPP basically telling all of us that as long as it is not in the law, any agreement or decision by Parliament does not count for MP Theo Heyliger and the UPP.
What MP Heyliger and his legal staff forgot to mention was the fact that on April 18th the members of Parliament, including the representatives of the UPP, unanimously voted for several electoral reforms including but not limited to promising not to buy votes, promise not to accept money, promise not to place campaign material close to polling stations, not to allow anyone to enter polling station wearing campaign paraphernalia, promise to remove all campaign material from the road 48 hours prior to election day and promise not to allow cellular, cameras or video cameras in voting booth. Since Parliament is the highest legal authority on the island, one would think that any motion passed in Parliament, especially one that was passed unanimously by no less than 6 Members supporting the UPP would have everyone's support.
This motion deals solely with the placing of campaign paraphernalia and the harassing of voters on Election Day, the Minister of Justice should simply execute this motion and not have to hold any consultations. Consultations that MP Heyliger conveniently did not attend, so it seems that MP Heyliger's opinion is more valid that those of 14 other Members of Parliament.
It is clear that the UPP and their leader MP Theo Heyliger are more concerned about placing billboards, jingles, flash mobs and parties than bringing their vision to the people of St. Maarten. The UPP seem afraid that if the people make a decision based on clarity that the UPP may lose significant support. The placing of nice pictures with projects but with no plan as to how to finance these projects. We must all remember that a major contributor to the high cost of living right now is the Causeway (Costway) Bridge. Will the leader of the UPP use another Government owned company to finance his promise and again send more people over the poverty line?
In conclusion, the people of St. Maarten can now see with full clarity which party leader is truly arrogant. The true basis of arrogance is one who believes that rules do not pertain to him.
Kendall Dupersoy
#SXMFIRST
