The new St. Eustatius Democratic Party Board (from left): Winston Fleming, Elvin Henriques, Magda Constania, Party Leader Raquel Spanner-Carty, Beverly Woodley, Sharon Berkel, Leona Spanner and Brian Carty.
ST. EUSTATIUS--Raquel Spanner-Carty has been elected as the new leader of the Democratic Party (DP) of St. Eustatius along with a new board during elections held at Gwendoline van Putten School on Monday evening, July 18.
Raquel will be taking over the party’s leadership from Island Councilwoman Adelka Spanner. Raquel was unanimously elected by a show of hands of DP members present at the meeting. Adelka has been the DP leader for more than 10 years and she promised to give her support to the new leader.
Elected to the board were Sharon Berkel, Magda Constania, Elvin Henriques, Leona Spanner, Beverly Woodley, Winston Fleming and Brian Carty. Floyd Woodley’s name was also proposed, but he declined, promising to be of assistance whenever the need arises.
Winston Fleming was elected as President of the DP. The party’s advisors will be Adelka Spanner, Ernie Simmons, Shanna Mercera-Gibbs, Floyd Woodley and Candida Gibbs,
Raquel said she was not originally keen on taking the position of leader, but after having thought about it, she decided to take the position only because she would not be doing the job alone. The entire party will be there with her and they will all be working together to tackle the tasks at hand.
Raquel said she has big shoes to fill, as Adelka has been doing this for 10 years and has done the job with composure, especially at moments when it was very hard to do so. “My only hope is that I can be a quarter of what you were in the position as leader. I look forward to the support of the party, I also look forward to hearing from my party members,” said Raquel.
She encouraged her party members to tell her what they see going on in Statia and to let her know what they believe the island needs. She said, as all of the speakers said during the meeting, “It’s not about me, it’s not about one individual party member, it’s about all of us. We want to do this together.”
Master of Ceremonies Brian Carty thanked the outgoing members for their dedicated service during the time spent on the board.
During the meeting, many people spoke about the future of the party, the island and its course going forward.
DP will be having a retreat in September.
