Unbiased look at the Sint Maarten Elections
It seems the formation of a new government might not go as smoothly as expected after all. Although “formateur†William Marlin (NA) presented Governor Eugene Holiday with his report and the incoming NA/DP/US coalition’s governing programme yesterday, DP leader Sarah Wescot-Williams confirmed that her party’s number two vote-getter Cornelius de Weever had indicated meanwhile that he preferred to occupy his seat in Parliament rather than remain Minister of Labour, Health and Social Affairs as intended.
This creates a problem, because DP quickly will have to choose another nominee to become one of its two cabinet members, while the names of all seven candidate ministers already had been submitted. In addition, it means that Emil Lee no longer will be able to enter Parliament unless Wescot-Williams now changes her earlier decision to take up a seat in the legislature as its chair, and thus becomes a minister.
As the next legislature and government won’t take office until October 10 there is still some time to sort things out. But the most recent events don’t bode well for what was supposed to become the first Marlin cabinet that, of course, still would depend on De Weever for its minimal majority backing in Parliament.
According to persistent rumours, the latter may even take it a step further by going independent as parliamentarian to help put UP in government and send the other three parties to the opposition benches instead. These stories could not be confirmed last night, however.
A possible reason for this latest move is that the required counterpart rule for foreign employees wasn’t included in the draft governing programme as apparently desired by De Weever. The fact that as minister he easily could be “left outside looking in†should there be a change in government as happened with the leaders of both NA and UP during the past four years also could have played a role.
So, it appears the “open and stable government†the NA/DP/US coalition accord promised may not be that easy to achieve. The future will tell, but if there is to be a change, better it occur now than later when the Council of Ministers already has been installed.
