THE HAGUE--The Kingdom Council of Ministers may very well decide this Friday to annul the National Decree of the new Curaçao Government to postpone the April 28 elections.
Curaçao Governor Lucille George-Wout has refused to sign the National Decree that interim Prime Minister Gilmar Pisas presented to her on Monday. She has sent the document to the Kingdom Government with a request for annulment.
A spokesperson of Dutch Minister of Home Affairs and Kingdom Relations Ronald Plasterk confirmed on Tuesday that the request for annulment of the National Decree has been received.
A meeting of the Kingdom Council of Ministers is slated for this Friday. The agenda of the Kingdom Council of Ministers is never made public, but it is highly likely that the National Decree will be discussed at this extra meeting.
Plasterk did not want to respond at this stage about the request for annulment or the proposal of former Curaçao Prime Minister Don Martina to grant the authority to organise the elections to the Governor instead of the new Curaçao Government.
According to Plasterk’s spokesperson, the Minister at this time had nothing to add to his earlier statement and letter regarding this issue. In a letter to Pisas dated March 17, Plasterk stated that in the opinion of the Kingdom Government, the Governor was within her right to ratify the February 12, 2017 National Decree of the Hensley Koeiman cabinet to dissolve Parliament and to call new elections and that there was no reason to doubt the validity of said National Decree.
Politically, The Hague is concerned about the developments in Curaçao. The liberal democratic VVD and the Socialist Party (SP) in the Second Chamber of the Dutch Parliament did not want to anticipate on the decision of the Kingdom Government, but in the opinion of both parties the elections should continue.
“The VVD will not accept postponement of the elections,” said Member of the Second Chamber André Bosman. “The elections will prove whether Curaçao will be a democratic state of law or a mafia state. In the latter case, there will be consequences because we can’t have one of the countries in the Kingdom run by the mafia,” said Member of the Second Chamber Ronald van Raak of the SP.
Bosman said he expected that the European Court of Human Rights would declare the request of the majority of the Curaçao Parliament to annul the April 28 elections inadmissible. He said that if the Court were to rule in this case, it would most probably decide that the elections should continue.
