Several parties both of St. Maarten and Curaçao are asking voters to give them a “full mandate” in next week’s respective elections on September 26 and 30. The argument is that this will allow them to form a stable government and execute their programme
without needing to worry about coalition partners.
In St. Maarten’s case that would mean at least 8 of the 15 Parliament seats. Two years ago the seat division ended up being 7-4-2-2, so it’s certainly not unthinkable.
While the argument of not having to govern with others and thus compromise is undoubtedly valid, one can look at it in a different manner too. When parties are forced to work together they also keep an eye on each other, which creates a sort of automatic system of checks and balances.
Of course, controlling the executive branch is the legislature’s job, but in practice public administrators have quite a bit of leeway; for example, by using decrees that don’t require parliamentary approval. Cabinet members, although they have individual political responsibility, can be called to account within the Council of Ministers.
In Aruba, AVP holds an absolute majority in Parliament and thus can govern on its own. Whether that has paid off can be debated, but the country was confronted with major budgetary issues that basically led to the Netherlands imposing financial supervision.
Then again, St. Maarten has dealt with similar problems since getting country status per 10-10-10, despite having coalitions. Moreover, primarily as a result of so-called “ship-jumping” there were just too many changes in Government, which doesn’t exactly promote continuity in policy.
Like with most things, the two scenarios have their pros and cons.
