HARBOUR VIEW--The five newly-registered political parties hoping to contest the February 9, 2016, snap elections jointly wrote to Governor Eugene Holiday protesting the William Marlin Cabinet’s plan to postpone the elections until completion of constitutional and electoral reforms.
Signing the November 30 hand-delivered letter were Benjamin Ortega of St. Maarten Development Movement, Peter J. Gittens of Millennium Action Party, Wycliffe Smith of St. Maarten Christian Party, Mercedes van der Waals-Wyatt of Helping Our People Excel and Loekie Morales of Beyond St. Maarten Development Party.
The parties said in a press statement that the letter addressed their sentiments and questioned whether citizens’ fundamental rights were being violated by the Cabinet’s planned move. They also questioned whether the Cabinet’s attempt to change the national decree to dissolve Parliament and call snap elections could be viewed as a “political manoeuvre to remain in power.”
The letter to the Governor is an appeal “to his better judgment” and a request for him “to heed the advice” received from the panel of three judges on the dissolution of Parliament and holding of snap elections. The advice of the judges is “threatened to be ignored by the current government,” it said.
The parties said there should be continuity in government; therefore, cancelation of the snap election was “not a prerequisite for electoral reform.”
“It is a priority of all parties involved that electoral reform is a necessary undertaking,” the parties said. If the Cabinet is pro-reform, it should not make a difference if a newly elected party executes the changes, the parties said.
“Past experience has shown that electoral reform has never been a high priority on the agendas of previous governments. Thus we cannot afford to have our democratic right high-jacked or stolen in the name of electoral reform,” they said.
