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Published On: Fri, Nov 22nd, 2019

Elections promise earthquake shift in the balance of power

SMCP on Postulation Day 21 Nov 2019 - 2019112101

PHILIPSBURG – Seven parties, 112 candidates and fifteen seats available in parliament: the theoretical odds of winning a seat are close to 1:7.5. The January elections promise an earthquake shift in the balance of power, due to the absence of two big names: Theo Heyliger and Frankin Meyers.

In the 2018 elections, Heyliger won by far the most votes of any individual candidate: 1,299. Meyers was good for 402 votes.

The merger of the United People’s party (UP) with the Democratic Party (DP) lasted just one election. The Heyliger-less UP will make an attempt to rise from its ashes under the leadership of Rolando Brison, while the UD – no longer united – will contest the elections with party leader Sarah Wescot-Williams.

How will the UP do without two of its biggest vote getters?  The numbers from the 2018 elections do not bode well for Brison&Co. We examined the candidate-lists of all parties and checked which candidates won votes in 2018.

We found that 51 of the 112 candidates in the upcoming elections won votes in last year’s election. Most of them – a stunning seventeen – are on the list of the National Alliance. Those candidates were good for 3,930 votes and no other list can even stand in the shadow of that number.

The UP ranks as a distant second with 1,373 votes won by seven candidates, followed by the UD (1,199 votes from four candidates). The St. Maarten Christian Party fields seven of its thirteen candidates that were also on the list in 2018, when they scored 1,042 votes. The United St. Maarten party (USp) follows with 742 votes, won in 2018 by ten candidates. The People’s Progressive Alliance (PPA) is at the bottom of the list with 197 votes, won last year by six candidates.

The Party for Progress, led by Melissa Gumbs contests the elections for the first time.

Obviously, these numbers only present a historical picture; they don’t say anything about the outcome of the elections in January 9, 2020, though it is tempting to think that the National Alliance will outperform all of its opponents.

Election results are however unpredictable; the UP will go to battle for the first time without its iconic leader Theo Heyliger; instead, the party now fields his spouse Grisha Marten as the number four candidate. How she will do is anybody’s guess, though Marten may attract a number of sympathy-votes on the wings of her husband’s legal challenges.

Unique is also the participation of two attorneys: Remco Stomp, the number 6 on the list of the United Democrats and Cor Merx, the number 18 on the list of UP.

Last but not least, there are a number of candidates that are subject to a criminal investigation or have already a criminal conviction to their name. Coincidence or not, four out of five are on the list of the United St. Maarten party: Frans Richardson, Claudius Buncamper, Chanel Brownbill (the numbers 1, 2 and 4 candidates) and  Akeem Arrindell (10).  The fifth candidate with a conviction to his name is attorney Cor Merx.

Silveria Jacobs is the party leader that won the most votes in 2018: 896. SMCP-leader Wycliffe Smith (see photo below) is second in this ranking with 577 votes, followed by UD’s Sarah Wescot-Williams (566), USp’s Frans Richardson (315) and UP-leader Rolando Brison (278). At the bottom of this list is PPA-leader Gracita Arrindell who won just 92 votes in 2018.

SMCP on Postulation Day 21 Nov 2019 - 2019112102

Photo caption: The Sint Maarten Christian Party (SMCP) under the leadership of MP and former Prime Minister, Wycliffe Smith (center), together with the very vocal former, MP Claude ‘Chacho’ Peterson (right), expects to capture at least 3 seats in the upcoming elections with their solid team of 13 candidates. Photo DCOMM.

United St. Maarten Party - 20191121 United Peoples Party - 20191121 United Democrats - 20191121 Progressive People's Alliance - 20191121 Party for Progress - 20191121 National Alliance - 20191121 Central Voting Bureau members - 20191121

Photos caption: The above photos show each political parties outside the House of Parliament as they presented their list of candidates to the Central Voting Bureau on Thursday, November 21, 2019. Photos DCOMM.

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