Dear Editor,
Given the performance of the Parliament of St. Maarten in the first nine years, voters are going to be apprehensive about how they can be effective when they cast their vote in the upcoming election.
The evidence is clear that in the past voters were not being offered choices that were real. It turned out that party lists did not consist of nominees that were truly and jointly committed to a particular party programme, nor that the parties had effective party discipline and organization to manage their nominees or parliamentarians for any reasonable amount of time. The recent history where members abandoned parties to join new coalitions without any clear public disclosure of the political motivation for abandoning the coalition in power dramatically shone light on this.
In nine years this minimal requirement for effective democracy was found wanting.
One would have hoped and expected that the older parties, having experienced the breakdowns would have learnt the lessons of the past, but clearly this has not been the case.
The conclusion is therefore that the upcoming pre-nomination period is in fact the most important in the election cycle. Voters will be hoping that parties will be selecting lists made up exclusively of persons truly supporting their platform and not selecting persons whose exclusive contribution would be to garner some votes in any way possible.
In the constitution we have, political parties have a significant function. The majority of parties in St. Maarten have failed. Stabilizing St. Maarten politics is dependent on political parties playing their required role. The voter who favours any party programme still has no democratic role unless the nominated persons have sufficient common vision that will last at least four years.
Robbie Ferron
