Philipsburg:--- The leader of the Concordia Political Alliance Jeffry Richardson has a lot to rejoice over after he won yet another battle in the Court of First Instance on Wednesday. Jeffry Richardson founder and leader of the Concordia Political Alliance (CPA) took the head of the voting bureau to court to have Fritz Leo Richardson added as the number two candidate on the CPA list and to also give Richardson a Dutch national who was born on Aruba the rights to vote and contest the September 17th election.Judge Van Veen ruled that the CPA must be given the necessary time to fill in all the necessary forms to add Richardson as the number 2 candidate on the CPA and submit it by Friday this week. In an invited comment Jeffry Richardson leader of the CPA said the civil registry has to give him all the necessary forms to fill in and if that is done he will finalize the new list for the CPA with the second candidate added and submit as ordered by the judge.
Pleading for the CPA was Attorney at law Zylena Bary who asked the court to allow her client Fritz Leo Richardson to vote as well as to become a candidate in the CPA list to contest the September 17 election. Bary pointed out to the judge that her client registered at the civil registry on July 16th while the voting registry closed on August 6th, she said the acting head of the civil registry mislead the leader of the CPA when she told him not to add three of his candidates to the list because according to her they were not registered, one of which was Fritz Leo Richardson. Bary said if the chairman of the main voting bureau has no problem allowing Fritz Leo Richardson the rights to vote then he should also be able to allow the CPA to add him as a candidate on their slate.
Representing the island government was the chairman of the main voting bureau Reynold Groeneveldt who told the judge that according to the law Richardson was supposed to register at the civil registry five days after he arrived on St. Maarten and that Richardson has been living on the island since 2008. Groeneveldt also asked the judge to declare the case of Richardson null and void since the injunction was filed against the chairman of the main voting bureau and not the island government. The acting Lt. Governor and chairman of the main voting bureau said that the problem Richardson is faced with was not caused by a mistake made by the acting head of the census office. Groeneveldt also told the court that the leader of the CPA Jeffry Richardson should have added Fritz Leo Richardson to his list even though he was told verbally that the candidate was not registered at the civil registry. Even though the lists from the various political parties were submitted on August 18th the validation of those lists only took place on September 1 2010.
Groeneveldt told members of the media that all four list have been validated and that they would all be contesting the September 17 elections. Groeneveldt said when the committee of the main voting bureau met last week they noticed that there were some minor mistakes with some of the candidates. He said the parties with the mistakes on their list were notified and the necessary corrections were made.
