Philipsburg:--- Member of Parliament George Pantophlet says that the wishes of the people of this country St. Maarten must be respected. There is a signature drive that is ongoing and reports are that some have already been sent to Parliament and then on to The Governor. The total amount is said to be some 3000 and these are signatures from eligible voters. The recent political developments have created division frustration dismay and confusion among the people on St. Maarten and those living overseas. Many of eligible voters are crying out for early elections and have stated that under no circumstances will they agree to another government being formed without their input. The old saying three strikes and you are out should be applied here. The people want to and deserve the right to have their say as to who they want their representatives to be. This the reason why they are making use of their rights in accordance with article 24 of the Constitution of St. Maarten to petition Parliament to be dissolved and to make way for early elections. I have said on more than one occasion that mass is power. We the politicians should not stand in the way of the people whom we claim to represent. We need politicians who are not double minded. Because a double minded person is unstable in all his ways. No country can afford individuals who are fickle, unstable and tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine but ones who are focus and committed to the people. What we have at this present moment is, 8 members of Parliament of the DP/UP and independents Leroy de Weever and Roy Marlin overruling some 3000 eligible persons. I am sure that after the final tally of signatures we will bypass the previously mentioned amount. I see this as a sort of a referendum. If this turns out to be the case, will the majority of 8 still press ahead with the appointing of new Ministers and go back to the way it was after the August 2010 elections where the party with the most amount of votes and seats were left out of the coalition, or give the people the opportunity to once again choose their representatives? Article 21(3) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states and I quote: "the will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures" end of quote. Let me emphasize on the first line of the Article "the will of the people shall be basis of the authority of government". In other words the foundation for the government has to be determined by the will of the people. This is definitely not the case with the group of 8. We must do what the people want.
