Only Two Political Parties Respond to Suggestion on Guidelines for Elections
PHILIPSBURG:--- The Prime Minister of St. Maarten the Honorable Sarah Wescot-Williams during last weeks Council of Minister's Press briefing stated that Parliament had not as yet reacted to her proposal on electoral and campaign reform, something that Parliament requested her to do based on motions presented by Parliament early in 2013. The PM stated that she had spoken frequently of her submitted position paper and that she still has to get response as such; "I have spoken on several occasions regarding my proposal to Parliament going back to 2013 following a motion adopted in the early part of 2013 in which Parliament expressed its desire for something to be done regarding electoral and campaign reform. I made a proposal to Parliament on my views regarding some of the changes that can be made. I already was in Parliament explaining my position paper but I did not get a clear feel from Parliament on if, how or whether the Parliament would be interested in pursuing the matters put forward regarding Electoral Reform.
"You would recall that my proposal entailed looking at the electoral law on one hand and looking at and making an amendment to the ordinance on the registration and finances of political parties. I also made proposals to Parliament regarding the possibilities of looking at the Rules of Order of the institution. I also proposed looking at the manner in which factions of Parliament are treated. Right now according to the rules of order provisions are made for the splitting up of a faction. Albeit that it is not yet regulated it is Factions themselves that would management their finances that are due to them. At this moment you have that whatever funding for factions is paid directly but if one or more persons split with the original faction and thus forms a separate faction it would mean that the amount of compensation due to the original faction needs to be shared up in accordance to the ratios of the numbers that were made. So if a faction starts out with nine seats and if two persons subsequently decide they are leaving that faction then the original agreement of what a faction of nine members is entitled to would then have to be allotted to the two who have left and created a faction.
"I also proposed the possibility of having a covenant to which political parties could make with respect to persons running on political lists. With respect to this and the matter of campaigning the motion of Parliament included some suggestions about voting day itself. Government looked at some of the matters that we could have addressed regarding changing electoral law and what I did as Minister of General Affairs responsible for elections, was to, along with the Minister of justice, suggest that some guidelines be put in place. Formally the Lt. Governor would issue campaign guidelines in terms of meetings, paraphernalia on the road etc. However in the absence of any such formal regulations there is nothing in place. So the proposal that I made to the Minister of Justice is that we come up with a draft and the Minister of Justice would contact the current political parties for their input on agreeing as to what the guidelines would be. The National Alliance and the Democratic Party have given their feedback but there was no reaction from other political parties. This proposal would be for us to have some guidelines with respect to the campaign and the matters that were mentioned by Parliament in terms of voters not being coerced or harassed during elections.
"Parliament did not seem too excited to run with any of these proposals so basically the matters of changing the ordinances by Parliament is not something that I expect to happen before the 2014 elections," concluded Prime Minister Wescot-Williams.
From the Cabinet of the Prime Minister
