What had been rumoured for some time was confirmed on Sunday. Independent (former UP) parliamentarian Maurice Lake (see related story) has joined United St. Maarten Party (USP).
As the September 26 election
draws nearer the political parties intending to participate will be busy finalising their candidate lists. They will have to do so by August 8, which is Nomination Day.
Immediately after that parties currently not represented in Parliament will go through a process of gathering enough support from the electorate. They will need one per cent of the last valid vote to take part in the elections.
Achieving such is harder than many may realise, as history has shown. This also may be one of the reasons for at least two mergers between new parties registered at the Electoral Council.
Beyond St. Maarten Development Party of Loekie Morales joined Help Our People Excel (HOPE) of Mercedes van der Waals-Wyatt, while the St. Maarten Christian Party combined forces with the Millennium Advancement Party (MAP). Readers should not be surprised if there are more of such similar developments in the works during the coming weeks.
One of the factors may be that a party must earn a first seat outright to qualify for a possible residual seat. As there usually are several of the latter to divide, this puts smaller parties at a disadvantage.
Some consider that undemocratic, but the goal is avoiding too much fragmentation in politics. As matter of fact, after this voter threshold was removed in Bonaire, St. Eustatius and Saba when they became the Caribbean Netherlands, it led to fragile coalitions on the two former islands, also because Commissioners no longer could be in the Island Council as well.
In Curaçao too there are indications of possible cooperation between parties, especially among those without a seat. Close to a dozen parties have announced their intended participation when citizens go to the polls there on September 30, which won’t make the so-called prequalification any easier.
The more parties ultimately win a seat in the legislature, the less chance there is of one winning an absolute majority, which in St. Maarten’s case is eight of the 15 seats. That has not happened in the two elections since country status was obtained on 10-10-10 and it’s not very likely now either, so people should take into account the real prospect of yet another coalition government.
