A Council of Ministers backed by the current UP/DP/Brownbill coalition in Parliament will finally be installed Monday (see related story), after a lengthy formation process. Particularly the screening of various candidates took more time than expected.
Because of the latter, any chance that the early election called for February 26 by the outgoing NA-led cabinet could still be postponed seems gone. This means the new transitional government will have just 2½ months until the legislature soon to be chosen takes office in early April.
Nevertheless, the Leona Marlin-Romeo Cabinet that for now consists of only six instead of the regular seven members – not counting the plenipotentiary minister – has an important task. It must guide St. Maarten’s further recovery from monster Hurricane Irma and initiate the rebuilding process that is vital to society’s future, making good use of funds provided by the Netherlands via the World Bank.
During the next six weeks all this must all happen while there is an election campaign going on, to be followed by coalition talks unless a single party gets the majority vote. These circumstances normally don’t make running the country any easier, but there are crucial decisions to be taken and executed.
One advantage is that everyone can agree on the present dire social situation and the need to alleviate such, as well as to restore the tourism economy. These are obviously not issues to play politics with.
The voters will be watching.
