Potential voting power puts National Alliance ahead of the rest
PHILIPSBURG — Eight parties will contest the January 11 elections. Together they are fielding 131 candidates of whom 42 also took part in the 2020 elections, bringing the total of new faces in the political arena to 89. In terms of potential voting-power the National Alliance seems to be in the best position to win the contest, though there are a few dark horses in the race that could influence the outcome.
Three parties presented on Postulation Day a list with the maximum of 23 candidates: the Democratic Party (DP), the United People’s party (UP) and the National Alliance (NA).
The National Alliance has eleven candidates who also participated in the 2020 elections when they won 2,899 votes between them. That’s the highest score of all parties. Nine DP-candidates were also in the race in 2020 when they won 1,433 votes, good for third place after the UP; its six participants in the 2020 elections won 1,661 votes.
Mark Mingo is the number four candidate on the UP-list. With no previous experience in politics, Mingo created plenty of exposure for himself on social media during the past couple of months with his slogan Vision for SXM. Whether he will be able to make up for the loss of potential votes caused by the departure of Grisha Heyliger-Marten (656 votes in 2020), Luc Mercelina (248) and Kevin Maingrette (135) seems rather doubtful.
The Party for Progress (PFP) stands out. It has just ten candidates on the list for the 2024 elections and six of them also participated in 2020. Those candidates won an astonishing 1,418 votes.
Christophe Emmanuel’s new party NOW brings 21 candidates to the elections. Four of them also took part in the 2020 elections when they won 1,244 votes.
The Unites St. Maarten party, the brainchild of former MP Frans Richardson, has only eleven candidates and just three of them were also candidates in 2020, winning just 141 votes. Founder Frans Richardson is not a candidate for the USP. The number one position on the list is for the party’s leader Pamela Gordon-Carty.
URSM, the party of former UP-candidate and MP Luc Mercelina presented a list with 19 candidates. Three of them took part in the 2020 elections and won 412 votes between them.
The eighth party on the 2024 ballot is ECE, which stands for Empire Culture Empowerment. Its lone candidate is Nigel Emmanuel David Wigley.
NOW and the UP are the parties with the highest number of newcomers (17). URSM has 16 candidates with no previous elections-experience, the DP 14 and the National Alliance 12. Six of the ten PFP-candidates also took part in the 2020-elections.
Newcomer on the National Alliance list is candidate number 21, Terrance Rey, publisher of StMaartenNews.com. Rey ran in the 2020 elections as candidate number 12 on the Christian Party, SMCP list. From 2010 until May 2012, Rey served as Policy Advisor in the Parliament of St. Maarten and from June 2012 he has served as the Deputy Secretary of the Progress Committee St. Maarten overseeing the plans of approach for, among others, the Ministry of Justice.
Postulation Day recap National Alliance – November 22, 2023.
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Related articles: Vote for Terrance Rey: Candidate #21 on the National Alliance list
