~Rep. denies claim~
PHILIPSBURG--The island’s student representative told students in Tallahassee, Florida, for whom they should vote in the January 22 Parliamentary Election when they were issued tickets to come home, opposition leader Sarah Wescot-Williams told the press Tuesday.
Student representative Arthur Lugisse emphatically denied this claim when called by this newspaper. He said in a telephone interview from Florida that he has always advised students not to take tickets from one party and go home and vote for another.
“We should be open an honest about where we stand politically. I told the students to be conscious of whom they took tickets from. In the past I went to the airport to find students with three tickets: one from the Democratic Party (DP), National Alliance (NA) and People’s Progressive Alliance (PPA) and this should not be,” Lugisse said.
Wescot-Williams had noted in the press conference that students being offered tickets to come home to vote is not new, but what was of concern now was that the student representative had been getting politically by telling them who to vote for. Lugisse is on the government payroll.
To this, Lugisse said he had always been a neutral person until recently, when he decided to support NA leader Commissioner William Marlin, but at no time had he told students whom to vote for.
He said that Wescot-Williams had made many promises to students, but never delivered, while Marlin after hearing the plea of the students for St. Maarten materials paid for four boxes of materials and shipping “out of his own pocket.”
This and several other things led him to support Marlin, because he found Marlin to be a man who did what he said.
“Marlin asked if I wanted to come down for the elections and I told him yes and for the first time I took part in the party’s celebrations. We are going to country status and we all have to be open about supporting St. Maarten,” the student representative said.
Lugisse put Wescot-Williams’ claims down to stress. “She is stressed out and fighting a battle she is losing. I am not mad with her. I just leave her to God.”
