The constitutional reforms per 10-10-10 have brought local politics closer to the Governor, it was stated during a Constitutional Law Congress in Nijmegen (see related article), where the latest
governmental developments in St. Maarten were obviously a hot topic. This observation may have to do with the fact that political parties and elections in the now dismantled Netherlands Antilles always have been completely island-based, which afforded the then-Antillean Governor some comfortable distance, although Curaçao was usually priority, with the other Island Territories left sharing less than half the seats in the Antillean Parliament.
This kind of less-than-positive effect of losing that additional administrative level provided by the former Central Government could be seen already in Aruba when it gained “separate status” in 1986 and again, after Curaçao became a country, with the fall of the Schotte Cabinet in 2012. There too a decree to dissolve the legislature and call early elections was passed, but the Governor still allowed the new majority to form an interim cabinet and govern for several months until the people went back to the polls.
So, with all due respect, saying Governor Eugene Holiday shouldn’t have become involved in a power struggle, as another speaker at the event did, is too easy. There are simply two articles side-by-side in the Constitution that seem in direct conflict yet can be applied independently of each other.
If the Governor had sent the Gumbs Cabinet’s original decree up to the Kingdom Council of Ministers for annulment because the UP-led government had already lost its majority backing and been the subject of a no-confidence motion in Parliament, some would have accused him of “running to Holland” or even treason. Signing it and allowing the then-Government to stay on until snap elections could be held would clearly be going directly against the majority of elected representatives, which is the basis of any self-respecting parliamentary democracy.
So the Governor chose not to wash his hands like Pontius Pilate and just send this “hot potato” up to The Hague, but rather sought middle ground and handled the matter locally by trying to make the best of bad situation.
It’s true that, as a result, to prevent yet another impasse he was forced to compromise again when the incoming Marlin Cabinet made clear it would not continue with elections on February 9 as announced. Admittedly, the whole thing has hardly been pretty, but pragmatic solutions for complicated problems rarely are and the extremely difficult circumstances that led to them were ultimately created by politicians, including those who adopted these ambivalent laws in the first place.
