Starting from 8 a.m. this morning, eligible voters have the opportunity to elect their representatives for the third time since our island became an autonomous country. St. Maarten needs, more than anything else, stability. That voters are fed up with politics after all the shenanigans of the past six years is understandable. Ship jumpers and candidates with criminal records do not make the country look good, nor do these characters give voters the confidence that this time around everything is going to be different. And yet, at the end of the day it is all up to the electorate. It…
Author: The Publisher
Attorneys march over Illidge Road, briefly bringing traffic to a standstill. Photo Today / Milton Pieters GREAT BAY – The pro bono lawyers will not give up their strike until there is a solid agreement with the justice ministry about the payment of outstanding invoices and an adjustment of tariffs that haven’t changed since 1993. On Friday, attorneys assembled in the parking lot of Today for a march on the office of Justice Minister Edson Kirindongo. The criminal defense attorneys received support from civil law attorneys from of office of BZSE. The attorneys started their march on Walter Nisbeth Road…
GREAT BAY – Former Aruba Airlines CEO and minority shareholder Capt. Onno de Swart recounts the details that led up to his removal from the Aruba-based airline company by the other shareholders and the ensuing legal battles that followed regarding monies owed to him for his shares. The Curacao-born Onno de Swart (47) studied Aviation Management at the Florida Institute of Technology. In January 2006 De Swart founded Aruba Airlines as the Arubaanse Luchtvaart Maatschappij (ALM) and served for over ten years as its President and CEO. De Swart, who was also a First Officer on the company’s Airbus A320…
GREAT BAY – What will the political landscape look like once all the votes have been counted tonight? Like in 2010 and 2014, Today conducted a poll, for which UTS made its Chippie network available. Due to technical issues, the poll could only be run for two days, giving us a limited sample, while a poll conducted this way has also other obvious limitations that we’ll explain below. Nevertheless, based on the outcome of the poll, we see a dead heat between the Democratic Party and the United People’s party – with 30 and 31 percent of the votes cast…
GREAT BAY – With a deed signed before a notary as well as a purchase and sale agreement reached between parties concerned, the way has been paved for construction of new parking facilities on Pond Island near the new government administration building. The long anticipated facilities are a project of the General Pension Fund, APS, which signed the deed to the area where the facilities are to be constructed, on Thursday. Earlier a sale and purchase agreement was also signed by APS with the government of St. Maarten. Finance Minister Richard Gibson and VROMI-Minister Angel Meyers, signed that agreement on…
GREAT BAY – For the third time in four years, Princess Heights Luxury Boutique Hotel has been named “Leading Hotel in St. Maarten”, by the World Travel Awards (WTA) in its 2016 Caribbean & North America Gala Ceremony, during a glittering event held at the Sandals Ochi Beach Resort in Ocho Rios, Jamaica. This is the third time in the last for years that Princess Heights is awarded with this international recognition. Heralded by The Wall Street Journal as the “Oscar’s of the travel industry,” the WTA has developed into the most prestigious and comprehensive awards program in travel and tourism…
SZV-Director Glen Carty (left) shakes hands with Minister Emil Lee after signing the performance contract. Photo contributed GREAT BAY – Minister Emil Lee (Public Health, Social Development and Labor) and SZV Director Glen Carty have signed the first ever performance agreement since the founding of the Social & Health Insurances SZV after 10-10-10. This performance agreement is a legal obligation and is directly tied to the operational budget of the SZV, which Director Carty submitted by the yearly legal deadline, which was also a first. Key elements of the performance agreement call for an enhanced digital medical referral process, benchmarked…
DP candidate Perry Geerlings says: “St. Maarten is run like a grocery store.” Photo Today / Hilbert Haar GREAT BAY – A man who speaks his mind and, he says, is considered a traitor because of it by some, is Democratic Party candidate number 4 Perry Geerlings, currently the director of the Cabinet of the Minister Plenipotentiary in The Hague. He knows the corridors of political power in the Netherlands but he is equally well-informed about what is happening in St. Maarten. Most logical question: why would someone with a comfortable and steady job in The Hague want to get…
The old and the new government administration building captured in one shot. In the foreground is the old building at Clem Labega Square with the post office to the left. In the heart of the picture is the new building that will welcome its first tenants today, with the TelEm building to the left. Photo Today / Milton Pieters
With just one more weekend to ponder which candidate to vote for when the polling stations open on Monday morning at 8 a.m., tensions are rising. This is apparent from the senseless attack on a gathering of the Christina Party in Belvedere on Wednesday evening. There is no doubt that the country stands on the brink of significant changes. More parties than ever are contesting the elections, there are more candidates than ever to choose from. The question is: what do they really offer? What is different this time around? We have noticed that parties are not that caustic in…
