The establishment of an Electoral Reform Committee (see Thursday paper) is at least a sign that the William Marlin Cabinet was not just giving lip service with its statements on the matter. It’s also true
that Governor Eugene Holiday mentioned the issue specifically when installing an Interim Government of the new NA/DP/USP/Lake/Matser coalition.
The latter had been done simultaneously with signing a decree to dissolve Parliament and call early elections on February 9, 2016. That date was postponed recently to September 26 and one of the reasons given for doing so was time needed to complete the desired changes primarily to tackle so-called “ship-jumping” before going back to the polls.
What these might entail is not yet clear. As the five new political parties stated in their joint release last week following a meeting with the Governor, “While constitutional reform can be quite lengthy and requires a two-thirds majority in Parliament, electoral reform, however, just requires a simple majority of eight which the current Marlin Cabinet now enjoys.”
That is true, but there are still things mentioned in the Constitution that relate to St. Maarten’s parliamentary democracy system. Moreover, the freedom elected representatives should have to act according to their own good conscience rather than directives of political parties they represent is also a principle that forms part of the spirit of the law.
Nevertheless, the committee members seem well-chosen enough and the effort deserves the benefit of the doubt pending the result. With a final report due on March 15, voters won’t have to wait too long to find out what ultimately will come from all of this, if anything.
