Unbiased look at the Sint Maarten Elections
PHILIPSBURG--The Democratic Party ((DP)) will be "digesting" and "evaluating" the preliminary parliamentary election results and will determine how to proceed, given the distribution of seats announced early this morning.
"We need to digest the results. That's where we will start. Then we see what needs to be done," (DP) leader Prime Minister Sarah Wescot-Williams told The Daily Herald at the party's headquarters at Bute Hotel just after the announcement.
"The (DP) has been in this to give stability to the government of St. Maarten and to give credibility to a government of St. Maarten. We just received the final results and we will evaluate them, look at the position of (DP) as well as that of other parties and decide how we move from here."
She said the preliminary results showed that the electorate wanted parties to work together. "If I look at what the electorate has indicated clearly, it's about working together, whichever those parties are. Clearly that's the mandate that has been given and the (DP) is willing and able to take up that mandate of the people and we will see where that leads us."
Wescot-Williams, party candidates and supporters spent Friday night into Saturday morning at the party's headquarters at Bute Hotel listening to election results on two large-screen televisions and crunching numbers as results were announced.
Asked whether the party planned to challenge anything in this process, Wescot-Williams said: "We haven't decided that yet. Naturally we crunched numbers. We were a little ahead of the official numbers.
"We received numbers informally and we looked at that and crunched them as we had them. That's what we have been doing all night. So now that the official numbers are in, we are going to look at those and make sure that they are in accordance with the law and then, once that has been verified, then the next step will follow."
