Members of the St. Eustatius voting bureau displaying the empty ballot box before the polling station was opened for voters.
ST. EUSTATIUS--In preliminary results last night Statia had a total of 639 votes cast in the Dutch Parliament Second Chamber elections on Wednesday, March 17.
U-Buntu Connected Front (list 29) had the most votes with 320. Charles Woodley (U-Buntu) had the most votes with 205, Nicolaas “Koos” Sneek (Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA)) had 117 votes, Raymond Knops (CDA) had 82, Carlos Lopes (U-Buntu) received 80 votes and Kenneth Cuvalay (U-Buntu) had a total of 33 votes, four votes were blank and there were five invalid votes.
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Voters in Statia came out to the polling station at Ernest (Mike) van Putten Youth Center/Lions’ Den for the election. There are a total of 1,893 eligible voters on the island.
Deputy Government Commissioner Alida Francis moments after casting her vote in the Second Chamber election.
For this election three candidates from Statia were featured in the candidate lists: Nicolaas “Koos” Sneek (CDA), Charles Woodley (U-Buntu) and Carlos Lopes (U-Buntu).
Government Commissioner Marnix van Rij casting his vote.
The increase of candidates has seen a rise in the number of people who turned out to the polls for this election. In 2017 there were 1,875 eligible voters and a total of 438 persons came out to vote.
Around 11:30am 112 votes had been cast, 564 at 6:30pm, 612 at 8:30pm and when the polls closed at 9:00pm 639 (33.7 per cent) votes had been cast, surpassing the turnout in 2017.
Census Office unit manager Nadine De Graff-Busby said the process of setting up the election on the island had gone went fairly well. The COVID-19 pandemic created some difficulties, but the voting bureau team was able to meet the deadline concerning the rules and regulations for holding an election during the COVID-19 pandemic.
De Graff-Busby said preparations were much easier for the voting bureau due to the island council elections that were held in October 2020. This enabled the voting bureau to have everything in place pertaining to the COVID-19 regulations. Even though the island has no active cases of COVID-19, she said they had decided to have the measures set as high as possible because the situation with regard to COVID-19 could change at any given moment.
De Graff-Busby said she had hoped that people would turn out for the elections, because the elections are very important because topics such as healthcare and the economy, among others, are decided in the Second Chamber and many of the outcomes are essential to Statia.
“We need a voice in the Second Chamber and coming out and expressing your right to vote shows that you do have a voice and that is why it’s important for us to come out and cast our votes,” De Graff-Busby said.
She said the voting bureau had some predictions amongst themselves of the total number of persons they expected might show up to cast their votes. Voting bureau member Latoya Bliden was closest in her prediction that 650 people would cast their vote in the election.
Government Commissioner Marnix van Rij also said it was important for everyone to vote in the election because it is a democratic right. “It is your right to vote for your candidate so that hopefully your candidate will be elected in the Second Chamber of Parliament,” he said.
The Second Chamber of Parliament is very important, he said, because they decide about the legislative proposals, make initiatives, control the government, and for Statia it is very important because all the laws being dealt with in the Dutch Parliament related to the BES (Bonaire, St. Eustatius and Saba) islands are discussed there. “You can influence that by making use of your right to vote.”
He said the Caribbean Netherlands and the European part of the Netherlands make up the Kingdom of the Netherlands. He said he knows Statia is far away in distance from the Netherlands, “but we have exactly the same rights as every other citizen in European part of the Netherlands, so make use of it.”
CDA Candidate #52 Nicolaas ‘Koos’ Sneek.
Lopes (U-Buntu) said the election was going well so far, the votes were coming in a little slowly, as he expected about 600-700 people would have shown up before 6:00pm.
“I have a little regret because a lot of our voters did not get their voting cards. Five or six people came to me today wanting to give me their support, but they did not receive their voting cards,” Lopes said.
The cut-off time for voters to request a voting card was March 12. “I think that was unacceptable, because we are voting on Wednesday. They could have opened up on Monday or Tuesday to help those people that did not receive their cards.” He said that knows people will say that those persons should have made an effort to go and get their cards, “but we are human beings, we don’t always do what we are supposed to do and that’s why we, as representatives, try to help them out.”
He said that other than that the election process had been pretty good.
He thanked all U-Buntu supporters for their support. “We are here fighting for your future, for you to have more representation in the Second Chamber. We want more equality, we want to have a say in what our day-to-day rights are,” Lopes said.
U-Buntu Connected Front candidate #13 Carlos Lopes casting his vote.
“U-Buntu” means “I am” because “we are,” Lopes explained. The party was formed by a civil rights lawyer in 2017 because of the cases he had to go through in the Netherlands and the representation was not ready for the eligible people he was representing, and he also saw the need for representation in the BES islands.
Lopes said his party is the only party that dedicated one or more paragraphs just to the BES islands and their interest. “I thought that when it was brought to us, that being a part of the Second Chamber, even if it’s just one or two seats, being a part, that’s still a voice,” he said.
Councilman Clyde van Putten casting his vote.
