MP Egbert Jurendy Doran
PHILIPSBURG--National Alliance (NA) Member of Parliament Egbert Jurendy Doran said on Tuesday that calling elections “at a time like this” was “extremely immature” on the part of the Leona Romeo-Marlin cabinet.
Doran said the people of St. Maarten deserve to know exactly why only after hearing that a coalition was formed, the Prime Minister decided to hurriedly draft a letter to Governor Eugene Holiday early Monday morning calling for snap elections.
“As the people can recall, the first snap elections since St. Maarten obtained its autonomous status on October 10, 2010, were called for by the then-Prime Minister Marcel Gumbs after his Cabinet received a vote of no-confidence from a majority in Parliament. Since then, much to the distress of the people, this practice seems to have become the norm.
“The people of St. Maarten are seeing the negative effects of this today, with the decision taken by the members of the Central Voting Bureau (justifiable or not), to make their positions available, and the lack of opportunity for especially new political parties to participate in the upcoming elections,” Doran said in a press statement.
“The Prime Minister's motivations for calling elections were baseless, as she had not only lost the confidence of the Members of Parliament, whom she loves to label as the ‘Opposition MPs’, but her government was given a failing report card by one of her very own supporting Members of Parliament, who pulled his support after giving it much thought.”
Doran said government officially had fallen after the plug was pulled by a United Democrats (UD) MP on September 9, 2019, causing the coalition to lose its majority in Parliament.
“As of that moment, the Council of Ministers officially sat in office, running the affairs of St. Maarten, without a majority supporting them. The Prime Minister and the rest of the Ministers kept very quiet on this very serious issue, and in the meantime, apart from speculations, the people heard absolutely nothing official concerning the state of affairs of the country, and were therefore left in suspense as they waited and hoped for a good outcome.
“Eventually nine Members of Parliament came together and decided that the country cannot be left in limbo any longer, as they do not deserve this,” Doran said in the release.
“The nine Members of Parliament signed the accord and proceeded to get the process going, assuring the people of St. Maarten that a majority of their elected representatives will take a stand in order to get things back on track. That is when the games started, with the rushed press briefing and the playing with the emotions of the people, encouraging them to believe that the government had only fallen at that point.”
Doran said most people in the country already knew that, contrary to what the Council of Ministers (COM) wanted them to believe, government had not fallen on that day, but a majority had formed a coalition on that day, and that was welcome news to them.
“In the meanwhile, during a press briefing, the Minister of Finance mentioned after one of the questions posed to him that calling elections when one Member of Parliament left, causing the coalition to lose its majority, which in turn left the Council of Ministers with no support to continue executing their tasks, would have been premature.
“The Minister claimed that he meant it only in regard to when the one Member of Parliament left the coalition, which more or less meant that premature didn't count anymore when the other two MPs eventually left the coalition.”
Doran said the COM needed to provide answers to a number of questions. He asked when, in the opinion of the Leona Marlin-Romeo cabinet, is it deemed premature as far as it pertains to calling or not calling for elections?
“Is it premature or not when one Member of Parliament pulls his/her support from the coalition/government, and causes them to instantly not have a majority anymore? How many Members of Parliament, or better yet, which Members of Parliament have to leave before it is no longer premature for this Council of Ministers to call for elections? Is it one, two, three or more?
“And at the same time, kindly explain, based on which regulations does the Council of Ministers come to this conclusion?” Doran asked.
He said the people of St. Maarten need to know that none of the nine MPs who eventually formed the new coalition had collapsed the government. “The nine elected Members of Parliament, who were given the mandate by the people of St. Maarten to represent them, decided to do the right thing by coming together and collectively forming the coalition that the people so rightfully deserve and were waiting for.”
He said calling elections was not only premature, but also definitely immature on the part of the Leona Romeo-Marlin Cabinet.
