Preliminary result
ORANJESTAD--Aruba’s election on Friday was a neck-and-neck race between opposition party AVP led by former Prime Minister Mike Eman, but with Wendrick Cicilia heading the candidate list (17,876 votes) and incumbent MEP led by outgoing Prime Minister Evelyn Wever-Croes (17,572). This earned them respectively nine and eight seats in the 21-seat Parliament when the last poll counts finally came in early Saturday morning.
AVP’s Cicilia and Eman.
The big surprise was newcomer “Futuro” of Gerlien Croes, Geoffrey Wever and Gino Goeloe winning no less than three seats with 7,349 votes, giving it a so-called key-position in the formation of a majority coalition government. The other seat went to a rejuvenated PPA led by Otmar Oduber with 3,558 votes.
MEP’s former governing partner “Raiz” failed to earn a seat, as did “Accion21” of Miguel Mansur, MAS of Marisol Tromp and Aguanette Gunn, independent parliamentarian Ryçond Santos do Nascimento’s LPR, RED, “Curpa” and HTC.
Compared to the prior election in 2021 “Raiz” lost 3,151 votes, MEP 3,128, MAS 2,595, A21 1,206, RED 1,149 and AVP 459. PPA gained 1,729 votes, HTC 256 and “Curpa” 111.
The results still need to be verified and there were 900 invalid votes.
