It is clear to everyone that a majority of the population wants new elections, and this majority is not supportive of only one political party but of several. I personally has seen UP supporters sign the petition with the claim that if new elections are called they will be voting UP again. This is not a party politics issue. This begs to question why some members of Parliament and the Prime Minister are against new elections.
The facts are, just like Parliament has a right to vote Ministers out with non-confidence, the Council of Ministers have the right to dissolve Parliament. Both options are available in our Constitution, neither is more technical than the other. If the writers of the Constitution wanted members of Parliament to sit for 4 years no matter what, they would have written it that way. The fact that there is no such article means that Parliament can legally be sent home before such a 4 year period. Our system is based on the trias politica, with each branch having the same authority and power. So claims that the Parliament has more power than Government is actually not true.
The Prime Minister claims that the act of dissolving Parliament should only be taken when the Members of Parliament cannot form a government. She also mentioned in her press briefing that this is normal in the law but I have to respectfully disagree with her. There have been 7 times that Parliament of the Netherlands Antilles had been dissolved in the past, as recently as last year Curacao did the exact same thing that is being proposed now. Even in surrounding Caribbean islands there are currently calls for early elections. In St. Kitts and Trinidad they are currently discussing suspending parliament and in the past several Caribbean islands have done so.
In her comments, the PM says that only she is allowed to send letters to the Governor but according to the constitution this is not completely true. The PM is indeed the one to send letters to the Governor but she does this on the request of a majority of the Council of Ministers, not on her own. Article 40 is clear in this aspect. If the PM is instructed to send a letter to the Governor by the Council of Ministers, she has no choice but to comply.
If it is indeed true that the PM has the right of refusal to submit decisions of the COM, how is it then possible for 8 MP's to have a meeting that was not convened in the correct manner and yet that meeting is being honored. There are some opinions out there that once the letter was sent to the Prime Minister by the 3 MP's that the Ministers should have resigned immediately but again this is not supported in the constitution. Article 33 says that the Prime Ministers and other Ministers are appointed and dismissed by National Ordinance. A letter to the PM does not constitute a National Ordinance. This is why we need new elections, there are a few MP's that feel they can do whatever they like and not suffer any consequences. It is time to take the decision back to the people.
MP Gracita Arrindell is all of a sudden concerned about our credit rating. However, she was not concerned in the 2010 and 2011 when the island was tainted with comments of Mr. 10% and mass corruption, mafia den and not to mention the suffering of the masses with high unemployment among the youth and much more. That was the word on the street.
Mr. Theo Heyliger, who hardly ever makes public statements made a long public statement on the issue, which indicates the importance of this issue to him. He mentions that after a year of lack of progress in making our lives better, the new coalition was formed. Well I for one will be paying keen attention to the actions of the new Ministers cause with only a year to go before scheduled elections, there isn't any time to reverse course and start over. This cabinet will be better served in continuing the progress started by this current Government and improving on it if they can.
In the end, I support new elections because I feel that Parliament has failed the people. We now have three guys with less than 700 votes deciding that Government was not cohesive, government was not answering his knocks on their doors, government was withholding information and government was not working in the interest of the people. However, unlike in April 2012, there is currently no uproar in the public. We must all remember, in 2012 the public was calling for the resignation of the Government, the movement started with the common man and woman on the street. The 3 MP's at that time were heeding the call of the people. Now I am not ignorant to think that the move then was 100% about the people but I must say that if we look at the signature drive it seems like this move now is about 100% self-interest.
If you asked me, the UP should join the call for new elections after all how will this Government function looking at the instability of a 8 member coalition. It seems to me that this coalition will be at the beck and call of the 8 member Parliament. Don't expect to get anything done for the next year for the people as this new Government will only be concerned with serving the personal interest of Parliament. In a situation like this, anyone and everyone that really has St. Maarten best interest at heart would want new elections to weed out the bad eggs.
Well Mr. Heyliger, what do you say.
Kendall Dupersoy
