Low turnout of voters in the BES-islands

PHILIPSBURG — An analysis of the way mail-in voters cast their vote for the Dutch Second Chamber show two things: D66 trails behind GreenLeft/PvdA and the low turnout of voters in the BES-islands – Bonaire, Statia and Saba – highlighted the disinterest of the islanders in overseas political affairs.

Statia has the worst record with a turnout of 9.7 percent, followed by Bonaire (21.5%) and Saba (28%). Worldwide the interest in these elections was much higher, as the results of the mail-in voting bureau shows: a turnout of 65 percent.

For some, the result in Statia, where New Social Contract (NSC) won, may come as a surprise, but this becomes a different story if you take into account the turnout of 9.7 percent, the 206 votes that were cast and the public support for NSC-candidate Faith Bruyning. The NSC-win in Statia resembles however a Pyrrhus-victory, because on the national level, NSC dropped from 20 to zero seats.

Worldwide 133,859 Dutch citizens living abroad registered for the elections but only 86,894 cast a vote, resulting in a turnout of 65 percent.

GreenLeft/PvdA won the mail-in vote with 25,110 votes (28.9%), ahead of D66 (16,049 votes or 18.47%), CDA (8,916 votes or 10.26%) and PVV with 7,451 votes or 8.57%. Volt (3,615 votes; 4.18%) and the Party for Animals (3,334 votes; 3.84%) did better than most of the smaller parties that did not fare well at all; most of them, with the exception of Forum for Democracy, BBB, SP and Christian Union, won less than one percent of the vote.

For the Caribbean there is some light at the end of the tunnel because Curacao-born D66-candidate Heera Dijk did not only win her seat in parliament, her faction also named her the spokeswoman for Kingdom Relations.

“I consider it my responsibility to build a sustainable cooperation and more opportunities for all parts of the kingdom,” she said. Dijk will take her seat in parliament on November 12.

StMaartenNews.com publisher Terrance Rey was interviewed by the NOS while the voting bureaus were still open. He laughed when the reporter asked him who was going to win: “Then you know immediately whom I voted for,” Rey said, confidently adding: “D66! Go Heera!!”

Rey said to be happy with the opportunity to vote for the Second Chamber. “I think that more people ought to make use of this opportunity.”