Some readers taking note of Wednesday’s story on election reform talks may have sighed or even yawned. After all, it’s a topic that’s been in discussion since country status was achieved per10-10-10. This implied a complete separation of the legislative and executive branches of government, while in the past days of the Island Territory in the – dismantled – Netherlands Antilles, half the Commissioners had to also be Island Council members.
The new situation put main vote-getters carrying out their popular mandate as ministers in a position where they could no longer exert direct influence in Parliament and risked being “left out looking in” in case of cabinet crises, which happened to several party leaders in less than decade. Perhaps partly because of that and a much higher renumeration for elected representatives, the phenomenon of “ship-jumping” that existed before the constitutional changes grew to new levels.
There has been much discussion about tackling this problem that promotes political instability, with seven different Councils of Ministers in less than nine years. However, in the Dutch representation system the person occupying the legislative seat must be free to act according to his or her good conscience without fear of losing such, so he/she can ultimately break with the party’s faction and keep it.
It was suggested the latter would go only for those who earned their own seat outright, but that too was deemed in contravention of the Kingdom Charter, as was the idea that a ship-jumper could keep the seat but not use it to form another government. Moreover, in both cases this would create seats with a different value.
So, if these and similar proposals turned out to be a dead-end street, it will be interesting to see what the still-to-be-established committee comes up with in this regard. One helpful hint might be to reconsider the so-called Lynch Law.
Named after the late SPM/SPA/NA stalwart Edgar Lynch, it meant the number of personal votes rather than the person’s position on the ballot would determine who was elected into office. This was obviously intended to enhance democracy.
However, determining at which number candidates would be on the slate no longer gave the party leadership the same control as before over their chance of getting elected. This led to politicians changing parties like underwear based on where they saw the best prospects to get a seat; so-called “list-shopping.”
Maybe if this decision were reversed it could give the local parties more structure instead of resembling a pigeon coop at times, with individualistic candidates flying in and out. Of course, that would require selfless team spirit, so a parliamentary majority ever approving it seems doubtful at best.
