Benjamin Ortega was chosen as President of the St. Maarten Chamber of Commerce and Industry (COCI) for the first time (see related story). It will be interesting to see how his term goes, because he has been making efforts to serve his country at the highest levels for some time.
Ortega became well-known to the general public when he headed political newcomer St. Maarten Development Movement (SDM) in the September 2016 elections. They had gotten the required support signatures for parties without current representation in Parliament quite comfortably, finishing second only to St. Maarten Christian Party (SMCP) by reaching the 146-vote threshold about an hour later. However, the 346 votes SDM received at the polls – following a recount – the following month were not enough for a legislative seat.
Ortega subsequently participated in an election for the small-business seat on the chamber board to replace parliamentarian Sidharth “Cookie” Bijlani in April 2017. He won with 42 votes, two more than his lone adversary, and was subsequently chosen as vice-president on July 1.
In January 2018 Ortega correctly announced he would take leave of absence from his chamber function to contest February’s snap election, even though this is not mandatory. As it turned out, SDM again failed to earn a seat with 416 votes and Ortega then went back to the chamber’s executive board as vice-president.
In November 2018 it was announced that he would take up one of the two available big-business seats as representative of big business. While all this may raise questions as to how he went from representing “small” to “big” business in such a relatively short time, one can’t help but admire the man’s drive and ambition.
Although Ortega will perhaps have to choose between the two roles at some point, for now he has shown the kind of perseverance in his quest to provide a meaningful contribution to society often needed to be successful. In that sense, the SDM leader is an example to many others who never even try, or give up too easily.
