The latest scandal in Dutch Caribbean politics is occurring in Aruba (see related story), where former AVP minister Benny Sevinger was scheduled to be sworn in as Member of Parliament (MP) on Thursday while detained as main suspect in the “Avestruz” (Ostrich) corruption probe. According to his party leader Mike Eman, the prosecution is biased against them and targeting members, so they put Sevinger on their candidate list for the recent election even though he was already under investigation.
The legal system allows this, as both active and passive voting rights are well-protected within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, to the extent that prisoners now vote in all elections. Prohibiting someone from running for public office is also considered a serious matter and basically only vagrants, drunks and persons not mentally sane were historically excluded beforehand by law.
It is not the first time either that something like this has happened in the – dismantled – Netherlands Antilles, but circumstances differ. The three leaders of Curaçao’s May 31, 1969, social revolt Amador Nita, Stanley Brown and Wilson “Papa” Godett were jailed for incitement but still took up their seats earned by the new “Frente Obrero Liberacion 30 di Mei” (FOL) in the election that followed.
Ironically, the latter’s son Anthony Godett, who took over the party, years later kept his seat in prison when convicted for corruption and won the next election on a sympathy vote only days after his release. That episode prompted a law stating that any irrevocable sentence of a year or more leads to loss of the seat.
Country St. Maarten stipulated in its constitution that ministers and parliamentarians in pre-trial detention are automatically suspended, despite the innocent-until-proven-guilty premise. This means what is happening in Aruba could probably not take place here.
However, at the end of the day integrity is not solely about rules and regulations, but morals, principles and strength of character. Just because something hasn’t been explicitly forbidden does not always make it right.
