Infighting in UP causes crack in coalition
PHILIPSBURG — President of Parliament MP Grisha Heyliger-Marten no longer sees eye to eye with the leader of the United People’s party (UP), MP Rolando Brison. “If he is elected as the party leader for the next elections, I will not be running with the party,” Heyliger-Marten said in an interview with Lady Grace on the radio broadcast The Breakfast Lounge.
At the same time Heyliger-Marten seems to be at ease with attempts to remove her as the President of Parliament. If a majority votes in any upcoming meeting against her, she will step down, though she expects her critics to explain what she has done wrong to deserve such a vote of no confidence.
Heyliger-Marten said that she has done everything within her power to help MP Brison grow in his role as party leader and as president of parliament. “He promised he would change his life. He stopped drinking and going out,” she said, adding that MP Brison uses his publicly declared Borderline Personality Disorder as ‘a crutch.”
“The issues I have always had with MP Brison are about his leadership skills,” Heyliger-Marten said, though she admitted that Brison’s public announcement about his borderline personality disorder was “powerful.”
The interview with Lady Grace came on the heels of a press release issued by MP Brison. He claimed that the decision to remove Heyliger-Marten as the president of parliment is due to her ‘reluctance” to work with all members of the coalition. In particular, MP Brison wrote in his press release, Heyliger-Marten refused to work together with MPs Akeem Arrindell and Chanel Brownbill, after they had been convinced to support the National Alliance-UP coalition.
Heyliger-Marten did not offer a reason for this, but MP Brison claims that he had tried for months to find a more amicable solution.
“I have exhausted every form of communication personally, with messages, emails and meetings,” Brison wrote, adding that MP Heyliger-Marten had cut off all communication with him. Heyliger-Marten denies that this is the case.
Brison wrote that he had taken time for “reflection and improvement” and that the results of these efforts are to the full satisfaction of “the vast majority of the UP board, UP MPs and ministers and other UP supporters.”
But MP Heyliger-Marten still misses the leadership skills: “He needs to present a vision for the future of the party,” she told Lady Grace.
“I tried several times to get MP Heyliger-Marten to listen to reason, but she has refused to work with me as leader of the UP party,” Brison wrote in his press release.
Brison furthermore claims that the direction Heyliger-Marten wants to take the UP would lead to the fall of the government and that she has refused to give up her position. That there will be a change of the guard is a given if you follow Brison’s press release; “The coalition has decided the best course of action was to thank MP Heyliger-Marten for serving as President of Parliament and relieve her of her duty.”
If the coalition indeed votes MP Heyliger-Marten out, Brison is expected to become her successor.
Continue reading: Time to grow UP
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Related articles and links:
Press release MP Rolando Brison about PoP Grisha Heyliger-Marten
Interview MP Grisha Heyliger-Marten with Lady Grace
Interview MP Grisha Heyliger-Marten with Ralph Cantave
Interview MP Rolando Brison with Lady Grace
Interview MP Rolando Brison with Billy D
