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Published On: Wed, Oct 19th, 2016

The system we live in

Hmmm, a discussion on Facebook about the election results shows that not everybody is happy. What else is new?

Interestingly, the discussion is based on knowledge we don’t have: that five of the seven ministers in the new cabinet won a seat in parliament. Based on the list, that shows the fifteen parliamentarians, the following politicians will presumably be part of the next Council of Ministers: Theo Heyliger, Franklin Meyers, Jules James, William Marlin, and Silveria Jacobs. Actually there are six, if you count Christophe Emmanuel in. The seventh minister is of course Richard “gibson who will stay on as the Finance Minister.

We’re not sure about any of this. It would result in a parliament where the number two of the Democratic Party, current Public Health Minister Emil Lee, has the most votes to his name (667). In descending order of votes won, the other fourteen would be Frans Richardson (502), Sarah Wescot-Williams (444), Chanel Brownbill (424), Silvio Matser (336), Sidharth ‘Cookie’ Bijlani (244), Claret Connor (238), Rodolphe Samuel and Tamara Leonard (207 each), Leona Marlin-Romeo (194), Ardwell Irion (190), Hyacinth Richardson (185), George Pantophlet (181), Romeo Pantophlet (179) and Dr. Lloyd Richardson (162).

Two candidates won’t be there, even though their vote count was high: Wyclyffe smith (St. Maarten Christian Party (391 votes) and Benjamin Ortega of the St. Maarten Development Movement (290 votes). The reason? They ran on their own list and those lists were not strong enough to carry their leader into the next parliament.

The Face bookers make the case for electing ministers, instead of letting the parties pick and choose after they have formed a government.

To us, that sounds like a very bad idea. Electing the Prime Minister is one thing, but electing all the other ministers as well is a recipe for disaster.

Ministers should have at least some affinity with the field they are going to work in – that’s about as much you can ask in a small community like ours. Minister Lee proved however that being a good manager overcomes plenty of obstacles. With a profound background in business and tourism, Lee produced a stellar performance at the department of public health, social development and labor.

Nevertheless, ideally you want a minister who knows his business, not a puppet who answers to his masters behind the scenes.

But here, this is the system we live in. the electorate votes for fifteen members in parliament and the winners form the next government. Those who won a seat in parliament have two options: parliament or – if so invited – the Council of Ministers.

It is not unheard of (see for instance the Netherlands) that ministers are appointed that did not take part in the elections.

In the past we have seen some unfortunate choices that were based on the ‘right’ of coalition partners to appoint a minister. The name of Ted Richardson comes to mind; he showed on more than one occasion that he was a puppet as the minister of Tourism and Economic Affairs and that then MP Romain Laville was his master.

With the decision by the new coalition to exclusively appoint ministers that come from their list of candidates, this puppet mastery should be a thing of the past. That feels like a step forward, though we will have to see how this is going to work in practice.

The reality is that we now end up with fifteen parliamentarians – if the Facebook report turns out to be correct (which we doubt) – that have one thing in common: not enough votes to win a seat based on the votes they won.

DP-MP Emil Lee came the closest with his 667 votes, but Dr. Lloyd Richardson (whom we thought would become Lee’s successor at public health) sits there with 162 votes, just 17.1 percent of the votes needed to meet the quota of 947 to win a seat and 1.14 percent of all 14,211 votes cast.

Again, that is the system we live in. Love it or hate it: if you want to do something about it you’ll have to become a Member of Parliament and convince at least nine others (for a two-third majority) to change things the way you see it. Good luck with that.