Dear Editor,
Let me congratulate all those people who for the first time postulated themselves on a list. I respect your courage and stance for participating. Congrats to all the political parties that were able to attain a seat and respect to all the top vote-getters.
Unfortunately, and as expected a coalition has to be formed to establish a new government. Here is where the challenges will define if a candidate or political party can be trusted and defines the individual or party character. When I read some of the party platforms, I know what their ideology is but the sad thing is, they do not know. This is the first obstruction in negotiation. You cannot negotiate for something if you do not know your stance on it and how best to approach it. The biggest challenge is that the people voted for somebody they believe is qualified or good, but in totality are their interests the same as yours.
An example, I heard many parties say they will build houses for the people. It sounds good but many parties want to go independent, but they are already shaping the people to be dependent that is a socialist ideology. The best thing to do is sell people the land to the people at an affordable price, set proper procedures in place and let them build their own houses. This makes them self-reliant and gives them the confidence to venture on their own ( capitalism).
Helping people and building a nation is not giving people free stuff, it is providing them with opportunities to help themselves. In reality, I have not seen a clear objective of how to create wealth and to attain the highest labour participation which in turn creates revenues for the government. History shows that oftentimes political parties' challenges establish when it comes to who will attain which ministry.
Suddenly greed kicks in and calm become a storm. One of the fastest ways to create jobs and cash flow is by investing in the infrastructure. St. Maarten's infrastructure is not tourism compliant.
We do not need tunnels and train nonsense. What we need is to create new roads that provide access to all locations. Build one-way, two-lane roads, and another one- way, two lanes from the opposite direction, certain parts will need viaducts. A viaduct is a bridge composed of several small spans for crossing a valley, dry or wetland, or forming an overpass. To get the best possible deals in infrastructure, let the companies fight it out to give the government the best maintenance deals and infrastructure pricing offers at the best affordable price.
Public transportation is a mess. We need bigger bus stops and pull over space for busses, we also need bigger busses to provide comfortable service if we want to have tourism compliance and public service for a decent well-functioning public transportation.
The party with the most votes has the most say, but that does not mean they have the best ideas that are possible and this is what determines how negotiations should be accomplished. The people of St. Maarten have to come up to par what they want, do they want more socialism, which is more government companies out of control, or capitalism, which will turn all utility companies into private sector companies. This manner of business usually gives better service and the government must make certain they pay their fair share of taxes.
I hear everybody talking about entrepreneurship which is great. I endorse that mentality because it is capitalism. In reality, we know we also must have a safety net because not everybody can be self-reliant and there are people who will need help. But that should not be the norm. I do not want a government that gives people free stuff or makes them dependent. I want a government that creates wealth. The art of negotiating and deal-making is now to see how the government will form. This is the calm before the storm. Choices have consequences, so, choose wisely.
The Patriot Miguel Arrindell
