Dear Editor,
Electoral reform has made the news once again, however, not surprisingly; it has become obvious that residents should not expect any Electoral Reform to occur before the upcoming elections.
Instead of going into the specifics of the new regulations to establish a new political party, the funding and financial accounts, the pictures of ballots and the debate on whether or not to remove the black curtains, CPC would like to hereby address the issue of obtaining a Parliamentary seat on the 'coattails' of party leaders or other party members.
Quite a few of Sint Maarten's current Parliamentarians obtained their seats riding on the high number of votes their party leaders received. There are persons in Parliament right now who received fewer votes than other politicians who participated in the elections of 2010 but did not get into Parliament because they were not 'lucky enough' to have party leaders who secured more than enough votes for one seat. CPC thinks this democratic deficit needs to be addressed once and for all.
CPC would like to propose a solution that would be simple to implement and would give all the options back to the voters:
Instead of giving every voter one vote to cast: CPC proposes to give each voter fifteen votes to select all fifteen members of Parliament. Let every voter decide on who exactly they would like to elect to Parliament. Those voters who wish to see one particular party represented, can opt to only cast their votes for members of that particular party. Those who only want to vote for one person can do so, but only once per person as you will not be allowed to vote for the same person fifteen times. One ballot will be used but instead of filling-in one circle, voters get the option of filling-in fifteen circles across party-lines.
This way, all fifteen Parliamentarians will actually have been elected by preferential vote which will eliminate "coat-tailing" and thus put the right to decide exactly who holds a parliamentary seat firmly in the hands of the electorate. Should a member of parliament be appointed to a Ministerial position, the next highest vote-getter would obtain the vacant parliamentary seat regardless of party affiliations. This would eliminate the prevalent perception that some parliamentarians are mere benchwarmers for Ministers or their party's political leaders!
It may perhaps take a bit longer to tally the votes but CPC considers this a small price to pay for reducing the democratic deficit.
Visit website: www.positivechangesxm.com for more details.
Citizens for Positive Change (CPC)
www.facebook.com/positivechangesxm