Campaigning for the upcoming elections officially kicks off today with the submission of candidate lists by political parties desiring to participate.
Nomination Day has become a tradition of its own, when the party leaders accompanied by their supporters hand in their lists with the necessary fanfare.
Despite the often-fierce rivalries, this process has always been characterised by a peaceful, friendly atmosphere with mutual respect and good-natured jabs among the political establishment. Readers will recall pictures of processions wearing different party colours passing and greeting one another without incident.
It’s important to continue this custom, because there are other countries where things tend to become quite tense. Strongly competing is fine, but true animosity has no place in local politics.
The parties would do well to be on time too. With nine of them the schedule is fairly tight and there is only about half an hour between the various appointments, so any delay could easily cause unnecessary confusion.
Mind you, it’s not as bad as in Curaçao, where 20 parties are expected and each has only some 15 minutes. Just like here, a majority of the parties there currently don’t have representation in Parliament, so they must subsequently gather the support of one per cent of the valid turnout in the most recent election to qualify.
The good news concerning the latter in St. Maarten is that there will be no assigned window for each candidate list on this occasion (see Saturday paper), so it won’t be immediately clear to everyone present which of the five “new” parties involved those who show up are in fact backing. That certainly makes this so-called pre-election a bit more democratic in nature although, of course, endorsing a party in such a manner doesn’t automatically mean people will also vote for it at the polls come September 26.
