Unbiased look at the Sint Maarten Elections
THE HAGUE--St. Maarten’s United People’s party (UP) Leader Theo Heyliger said in an interview with the Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad on Wednesday that an impasse was imminent in the conflict with the Netherlands about the extra screening of the candidate prime minister and ministers.
Heyliger confirmed in a telephone interview with NRC Handelsblad editor Emilie van Outeren that the St. Maarten Government didn’t cooperate with the October 17, 2014, instruction of the Kingdom Council of Ministers ordering the Governor to hold off on the ratification of the appointment of the prime minister and minister until a thorough screening had taken place with the assistance of Dutch experts.
“Our own screening takes two to three weeks. The Netherlands is not getting access to the government documents. We have to see whether the Governor doesn’t sign in a few weeks for the installation of the new ministers. An impasse is looming,†he told the newspaper.
Heyliger also confirmed in the interview that he wasn’t on the list of the candidates for the new Council of Ministers and that he will not become the new prime minister. Instead, he will stay in Parliament. He didn’t state the name of the candidate prime minister, but the name that is being mentioned in the (political) corridors is former St. Maarten Democratic Party ((DP)) Member of Parliament and State Secretary of the Netherlands Antilles Marcel Gumbs.
In the NRC Handelsblad, Heyliger said that he would not sit in the Council of Ministers not because of doubts about his own integrity, but because he didn’t want to put further pressure on Governor Eugene Holiday. He said the Governor had to carry out an “impossible job in the witch hunt of the Netherlands.â€
Heyliger said his decision to remain in Parliament didn’t stem from fear of integrity issues being uncovered during the extra screening that the candidate ministers have to pass. “Why should I? I am not being prosecuted for anything. I have been in politics since 1995. I have been a commissioner, minister and member of Parliament. I have been screened various times.
“The prosecutors and judges here come from the Netherlands. If they had something on me to sentence me, they would have done so already. But the Dutch screening goes further since it weighs in rumours and insinuations. They don’t differentiate between fact and fiction,†he told the newspaper.
According to Heyliger, The Hague is making it look as if St. Maarten was one big corrupt mess. He said the island was willing to invest more in integrity and investigation/prosecution, but that the execution of the many recommendations of the two integrity reports cost a lot of money. “Then we again end up with Dutch financial supervision. It is a catch 22.â€
