Dear Editor,

The people of Sint Maarten expect a higher level of functioning from our Parliament in the New Year. Following a trial-and-error period of six years, our MPs should begin to raise the bar in 2017.

We expect our MPs, while on the floor of parliament, to stick to the business at hand and not be carried away by personal or emotional circumstances. According to article 53 of the Constitution, parliamentarians should refrain from debating and voting on issues related to their person, their spouses or family members to the second degree. If MPs are not pleased with the way family members are treated, this should be handled privately and not addressed on the floor of Parliament. MPs should not be bringing family issues to the floor of Parliament.

Parliamentarians should also be aware that they are being heard, not only in Sint Maarten, but regionally as well as internationally. The language used in Parliament should be adjusted for a wider audience. We do not expect our parliamentarians to use Oxford or American English, but we do expect them to express themselves in such a manner that our regional and international audiences can also understand them, and are not turned off by their grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation or speech content. I am not degrading our local English, but there is a place and time for its use.

In addition, parliamentarians should be consistent in the way they address the President of Parliament. If the President is female, then, according to Roberts Rules of Order, she should be addressed as Madame Chairman. In English, the word chairman is considered gender neutral, just like the words governor, director or ombudsman. We don’t say governess or directress or ombudswoman. Also, according to Robert’s Rules of Order, when the chairman gives a parliamentarian permission to speak, he does not give him/her the word, but rather the chairman “gives him/her the floor.”

Parliamentarians should refrain from walking out of the hall unnecessarily or from texting during public meetings. When the camera does a pan shot of the hall of our parliament, it is shameful to see most of the MPs engrossed in texting, or to see so many empty seats. Walking out during parliamentary meetings may be a carry-over from the days of the Parliament of the Netherlands Antilles. But in those days, meetings were broadcasted via radio, so people did not see what was going on. Today, our meetings are live video-casted and can be viewed later at everyone’s convenience.

It looks very bad to see a lot of empty seats and MPs walking in and out, or texting. This gives the voters the impression that our MPs do not care about what their colleagues are saying. Basic courtesy and ethics teach us to respect a speaker by giving him or her our undivided attention. MPs must also take into account the example they are setting in our society by this type of behaviour.

Parliament should also take into consideration, that the public, watching and listening, has little information about the meeting. The President, therefore, should give an explanation, not for the sake of the MPs, who are in possession of the agenda and the relevant documents, but for the sake of the general public, who do not have much of a clue as to what the meeting is all about.

Case in point is the recent meeting concerning the appointment of members to the various parliamentary committees. No information was given to the public about the various committees and how they function. At the end of the meeting, the public had no clue which MPs were appointed and to which committees. This information was published several days later in the newspaper. I believe that the President of Parliament should ensure that the public is duly informed concerning the meetings. The agenda alone does not say much.

For the people of Sint Maarten who are unable to attend the live committee or public meetings, or listen or watch the live broadcast, the SMCP strongly recommends that all meetings should be recorded and made available via Parliament’s website or via YouTube. Unfortunately, not all central committee and public meetings concerning the 2017 Budget have been recorded. SMCP also requests Parliament to improve the audio archives by labelling and dating them more clearly so that the public can better select the meeting or meetings they want to listen to. The same applies to the video archives.

SMCP proposes that, in 2017, our Parliament institutes a regular Meet the Press Hour once a month. During this hour, the President of Parliament and the Chairpersons of the various Parliamentary Committees should inform the press, regarding meetings, outcomes, plans, projects and activities. Seeing that Parliament is a fairly new institution, these sessions can also be used to enlighten the public, as to the duties, rights, responsibilities and functioning of Parliament.

MPs, please help to make Parliament more accessible to the public and raise the bar in Parliament in 2017. Happy New Year Sint Maarten!

Wycliffe Smith

Leader of the Sint Maarten Christian Party

Dear Editor,

As long as I can remember, Christmas has always been the most publicly celebrated church holiday of the year. It seems that there was a consensus, because every sermon that I heard He, Christ that is, is was "the reason for the season” The birth of our Saviour.

I begin my letter this way because of a shock that I got from listening to some young fellows discussing about the Bible. It was not about quoting Scripture.

This is approximately how it went. Government goes to church too on Sint Maarten Day and they also go church to thank God after the hurricane season. That means that government believes that God is in control. Then if they believe that, and they believe that we (the youth) are going astray, why don't they who decided on compulsory education try to put young people on fire for God. They have to teach us about the Bible.

At that point I felt that I could give them some enlightenment, so I decided to explain the demand for equal rights by non-believers, and those who have other gods, but I was interrupted with the following. If government is for all the people, then does not the believer have the same rights as the non-believer? Then why is it so that the same governments which engrave and print "God zij met ons" and "In God we trust" on their currency took the Bible out of schools to accommodate the non-believers, but permit the non-believers to have equal rights to the currency? Is not that being unfair to the believer?

My questions might sound a bit far-fetched, but are the non-believers going to demand that Government eliminate those sayings from their currency, and are they going to demand that we break down churches also? Should not the non-believers refuse the guilder and dollar? I would like to see the comparison of crime rate with the Bible in schools to when the Bible was taken out of schools. I would also like for those "grandes savants" to explain why 80 percent of the inmates is younger than 25 years old.

By the way, Joslyn Morton was on the money, but speaking of money, I do not believe that that 13 million was correct, it should have been much more. They know what I'm talking about.

Russell A. Simmons

Dear Editor,

The taking of almost 3 months to form a government (September 26 to December 20.)This article looks first at the larger (2016) political landscape and context within which the September 26 Parliamentary election took place. More specifically, the article examines the reason(s) for the early 2016 Parliamentary election in light of a vote of no confidence in Government (by Parliament). Secondly, it provides further analysis of the determination of the election results or allotment of Parliamentary seats in the aftermath of the election. Finally, the politically false presumption in the selection and appointment of Council of Ministers, leading to the stagnation of the formation of a government for13 weeks after the election and the signing of 2 governing coalition agreements.

In retrospect, what the future holds for the sustainable socio-political and development administration of the constituent state of Sint Maarten beyond 2016 appears to be quite uncertain. However, what is certain is that St. Maarten’s present political entangled path is unsustainable and needs to be changed – a change that needs to be legislatively substantive rather than superficial.

Political Context

It is no exaggeration to argue that the September 26, Parliamentary election in St. Maarten marked a significant benchmark in the political history of the constituent state (of the Kingdom of the Netherlands). Said election was mandated by the Governor in the aftermath of a vote of no confidence in the Council of Ministers motivated by “ship-jumping”. [A chronic practice where a member-elect or a member of parliament indiscriminately breaks ties with his/her elected party list, declares him- or herself as an independent member of parliament, aligns him- or herself with a different party list and renders the premature fall of government.] Consequently, a new coalition government was formed to govern until the mandated September 26^th election would be held, with the specific instruction to explore, formulate and pass legislation to “stop” and/or “avert” ship-jumping.

Needless to say, this was not realized before the September 26, election, despite the Government having some 10 months to accomplish it. The election was notably highly contested with a record number of 9 parties taking part, while yielding no definitive results, as no one party garnered a majority of the seats in Parliament to presumptively take the lead in the formation of a coalition government. Respectively, Party-list 2 and 9 equally garnered 5 seats, Party-list 3 garnered 3 seats and Party-list 8 garnered 2 seats.

The Election Ordinance that governs the Parliamentary Election has many strengths and weaknesses. Weaknesses that nurture “ship-jumping” by not ensuring the confirmative of proportional representation within Government/ Parliament, in accordance with Article 47 Section 1 of the Constitution (and matters concerned therewith). The concept of proportional representation allows that – “the make-up of a parliament by allocating seats on the basis of the number of votes each party received” which ensures that votes carry equal weight. In effect, if party A wins and is allotted 5 seats in parliament, this should be maintained throughout the electoral or governing cycle. However, in the previous elections (in 2010 and again in 2014) this had not been the case, as parties have seen their allotted seats in Parliament diminished as a result of “ship-jumping. As such, the wishes of the people, by democratic vote, are being disrespected and re-allocated in the absence of clarity and key provisions in the narratives/Article of the Election Ordinance where the apparent unconstitutional practice of “ship-jumping” is entertained.

Consequently, the young constituent sate of St. Maarten has seen 5 governments in 6 years, hardly conducive to the further socio-political and developmental administration of the Island constituent state.

The alternative is electoral reform through proportional representation wherein any elected/selected candidate who attempts to ship-jump automatically loses his or her seat in Parliament, thereby guaranteeing each party the number of seats in Parliament in proportion to the number of votes received. See the proposed Draft Election Ordinance Amendment Legislation presented to Parliament March 7, 2016.

Allotment of Seats in Parliament

In the aftermath of the 2016 Parliamentary election other prudent concerns emerged which rightfully can be attributed to the “largest remainder (“restzetel”) method presently used in filling the seats, as a result of the election, in Parliament where the total number of valid votes cast is divided by the total number of seats to be allocated, referred to as the “electoral quota”.

Next, the electoral quota is divided into the total votes each party list received with the party list being allotted one seat for each electoral quota produced. After this allotment process is completed and there are remainder seats to be allotted, then the total votes each party received is divided by the allotted seat(s) plus one fictitious seat. The party or parties with the highest average(s) is/are allotted the remaining seat(s). The latter calculation is repeated until all seats are allocated. As such, 10 seats were allotted outright with 5 remaining seats. Party list 1, allotted zero seats; Party list 2, allotted 4 seats with 1 remainder seat, totalling 5 seats; Party list 3, allotted 2 seats with 1 remainder seat, totalling 3 seats; Party lists 4, 5, 6, and 7, zero seats; Party list 8, allotted 1 seat with 1 remainder seat, totalling 2 seats; and Party list 9, allotted 3 seats with 2 remainder seats, totalling 5 seats.

The prudent concern with the allotment of the Parliamentary seats (by the largest remainder method) is the distorted allotment of 2 remainder seats to Party list 9 over 1 remainder seat to Party list 2, whilst Party list 2 received more votes than Party list 9, specifically, 4,130 votes compared to 3,778 respectfully. In effect, the largest remainder method, as used, rewarded Party list 9 more seats, despite not winning a majority of the votes.

Another distortion is precipitated by Article 96.2 of the Electoral Ordinance which regulates that ‘if the total votes received by a party list is less than the electoral quota, that party list would not be permitted to participate in the seat allotment process. Consequently, Party list 6 after receiving a significant 848 votes (99 votes less than the electoral quota of 947) was instrumentally omitted from the seat-allotment process. Thus effectively leaving some 848 voters with no direct representation of their policy/issue interests in the Parliament. Such distortions produce notably less proportional results in the Parliament.

An alternative is proportional allocated/allotted seats based on the highest average method; the d’Hondt method, which is used worldwide including the Netherlands, and considered to be the best proportional representation method. This requires the total number of votes for each party list to be divided successively by 1, 2, 3, etc. up to the total number of Parliamentary seats (15). The seats are then allotted to parties with the highest resulting (15) averages.

Given the d’Hondt method, the allotment of seats in the 2016 Parliamentary election would be : 5 eats for Party list 2; 3 seats for Party list 3; 1 seat for Party list 5; 2 seats for Party list 8; and 4 seats for Party list 9. In contrast to the largest remainder method in use which disenfranchised a block of 848 voters, the highest average method/the d’Hondt method best allots seats to the parties that get the highest number of votes. As such, Party list 5 with a significant 848 votes would be allotted 1 seat in Parliament and Party list 9 would not be allotted an extra seat with fewer votes/the second highest number of votes.

Politically False Presumption

Perhaps most stunning of the changing political landscape are politically false presumptions that have been thrusted into the political system and society, and which is being accepted (for now); Political correctness/false presumptions that overrule or reject reality and replace them with beliefs that are fabricated out of thin air for political purposes and/or expediency. A notable example is the present false presumption that “if one is good enough to run on a party list, one is good enough to be appointed as a Minster” or the notion that the Council of Ministers should be comprised of (unelected) party list candidates who form Government (which was hailed by the press as a “good thing”) and by the virtue of getting more votes over the other party list candidates that form Government is enough of a reason to be first appointed to the Council of Ministers. Essentially, politically false presumptions at best rationalize emotional decisions.

Truthfully, the rationale of the Council of Ministers is to appoint and bring competent professional persons, in their own right, into these Ministerial positions for the proper and good governance of Government, not for the expediency of political appointments. That is, for example, the political favour of appointing a “blacksmith” to the ministerial position of economic development with the obvious task of engaging in strategic economic development tasks, overseeing and managing related departments, formulating and proposing economic development policy/legislation for which the necessary capacity is definitely not there.

Looking to the future

Will the (present) Government’s factions seek to address the changing political landscape of St. Maarten for the sake of sustainable social, political and economic development and good governance of the Island-state? Will the Red, White and Blue coalition joined by the sitting minority (in Parliament) seriously embark on the elimination of the political anomaly of “ship-jumping”, and ensuring party-list representation in Parliament as voted for by the electorate - by redrawing proportional representation in the Electoral Ordinance? Will St. Maarten slide deeper into the abyss of political dysfunctionalism, personal politics among the notion where unsubstantiated personal beliefs tend to overrule reality or realize that governance is not based on individual consciences, but on sound public policy and consensus building? Only time will tell what the next chapter in the evolution of St. Maarten holds. What is absolutely clear, however, is that political thought and reform is essential in St. Maarten.

Julio R. Romney, Political Analyst

Dear Editor,

In yesterday’s Daily Herald I read that Firefly Fireworks will only sell their fireworks to adults. Of course this is a responsible thing to do. But I would also like to suggest to sell a limited quantity to the buyers, because quite a few of those ”adults” buy a large quantity and resell them in the streets to whomever wants to buy, and especially to kids. I have seen this for many years in my area.

A very concerned resident.

Name withheld at author's request.