PHILIPSBURG--The ultimate deciders of political careers – the people of St. Maarten – should not be denied the right to go to the polls by any political party for any reason, says United People’s (UP) party leader Member of Parliament (MP) Theo Heyliger.
The right to go to the polls for snap elections on February 9, 2016, has been given by virtue of Governor Eugene Holiday’s signature and the publication of the national decree in the National Gazette, Heyliger told The Daily Herald.
“It does not or should not matter if the decree comes into force as of December 15. The National Alliance (NA)-led coalition’s move to cancel the existing decree can be described as nothing short of robbing the people of their right to vote. The new draft decree also questions the Governor’s competence,” he said.
The submission of a new decree to cancel the one of the Marcel Gumbs Cabinet that seeks to dissolve Parliament and hold snap elections with the argument that the premise of the first decree was “supposedly” incorrect, blatantly accuses the Governor of signing off on a decree that was wrong,” said Heyliger. “The NA leader is basically saying the decree is wrong and the right of the people to decide their future should also be taken away until he and the NA decide they deserve it,” Heyliger said.
“There are people who do not want elections, but there are many, many more people, who want to be part of the process again via the ballot,” he said. “The NA leader said his party was not ‘afraid’ of elections, then let the people go back to the polls and do not hamper democracy.”
The “simply amazing” part about the move to cancel elections by NA and its coalition members is “the utter and complete silence from radical, anti-St. Maarten factions in The Hague,” said Heyliger. “Just imagine if it were the UP trying to cancel a duly called elections. I would be labelled everything, including a dictator, and all hell may have broken loose.”
Another argument of the current coalition is the financial state of the country and further disruptions of the budget process. Heyliger said that process was hampered since September 30, when the Coalition of Eight decided they wanted to be in government even with a slim majority, Heyliger said.
“The bottom line is no one, no party, should take away the people’s right to go to the polls under any circumstance. The argument of NA that constitutional reform and then elections ignores the very crucial fact that any change to our Constitution requires a two-thirds majority in Parliament – a majority the Coalition of Eight does not have,” he said.
“The move to cancel already called elections after agreeing to the Governor’s instructions to form a cabinet to prepare for elections shows the NA’s state of mind to be in government at any cost. This time, however, NA is sitting in government at a cost. That cost is the people’s right to go to the polls. That’s a right that should be respected and not be ripped from the people of this country in a dictatorial manner,” said Heyliger.
UP deputy leader MP Franklyn Meyers also shared the sentiments of Heyliger about the attempts to cancel the snap elections.
“It is a blatant disrespect of the people’s right to cast their vote and judgment. Once it is established that elections are to be held on a specific date, then nobody should play around with that. Voting is the most precious democratic right of St. Maarteners and we cannot take that right away from them,” Meyers said.
“Greed for power at any cost is flourishing” in the ranks of the Coalition of Eight, he said. “Our forefathers went through so many hardships to reach to freedom and now we reached to a point that our own are trying to muzzle our people … I cannot grasp that there are those who are willing to revoke the rights of the people for their own political self-gain and power,” Meyers said in a press statement.
