There are growing indications that the Kingdom Council of Ministers may move to place St. Maarten under higher supervision in its bi-weekly meeting on Friday. The current political uncertainty with early elections now called under the worst of conditions and the resulting possible continued delay of recovery assistance for the hard-hit population may be enough justification to do so.
Should this occur, one must think not only of imposing the Integrity Chamber and border control by the Royal Military Police and Customs of the Netherlands as threatened earlier, but basically taking over the entire government. Shamefully, deciding to go back to the polls at a time of such widespread misery and distress is so darn ludicrous one could hardly blame them.
The citizens of this country are Dutch subjects and deserve to have their interests defended at the kingdom level if necessary because it’s not being done by those first called on to carry that responsibility. Local leaders will quickly have to decide whether they do the correct thing by postponing these highly undesirable elections and coming together to create a stable government in the current crisis situation or have The Hague do it for them based on the guarantee function in the Kingdom Charter.
These are extraordinary circumstances when “business as usual” simply won’t suffice. That also goes for the political establishment and public administrators, no matter what their function.
It’s either one way or the other.
