It looks like St. Maarten and Curaçao will be going to the polls again even sooner than expected. With the new relations within the Dutch Kingdom to take effect on October 10, 2010, elections for what will become the Parliaments of the new two countries normally would have to take place at least two months before, which would be August 10.
However, because the school vacation runs from the end of June to mid-August, indications are that the elections will be held as early as mid-June. After all, many people, especially those with school-going children, traditionally go abroad on holiday during the vacation period, which probably would have a negative impact on the voter turnout.
In addition, schools are generally used as polling stations and doing so during the summer vacation would require extra-early preparations as well as create potential issues in terms of readily gaining access and dealing with whatever location problems. On top of that, many of the volunteers manning the voting bureaus are teachers who, of course, would be off and possibly elsewhere.
If the elections indeed are to be held in mid-June as is now being hinted in Willemstad, the nomination of candidates would have to take place in April, just over two months from now and relatively soon after the recently-elected new Antillean Parliament and Central Government take office on March 26. Not only that, but St. Maarten would be in the middle of its Carnival celebrations.
A far from ideal situation, obviously, but a direct consequence of the Antillean Advisory Council having opposed the idea of extending the term of the current Parliament and Cabinet to 10-10-10 in light of the constitutional changes, an advice that Prime Minister Emily de Jongh-Elhage believed she could not ignore.
What also plays a role is that approval by a two-thirds majority of the current respective Island Councils is required for the draft constitutions of the two new countries. In St. Maarten that would seem to be no problem, as both factions support the process, but in Curaçao it is a different story and the PAR/PNP/FOL coalition currently has only a minimal majority with 11 of 21 seats.
The rule is that without a two-thirds majority the Island Council in question would be dissolved and new elections held, after which only a simple majority would be needed in the next Island Council. What all this boils down to is that unless the current Curaçao coalition can persuade one or more opposition factions to help secure that two-thirds majority, it probably will time the handling of the draft constitution in such a way that the dissolving of the Island Council will automatically lead into the elections for the new Island Council/future Parliament, which can then pass it with a simple majority.
If it all seems rather intricate, it's probably because it is, but that is what most likely will have to happen for the new relations to take effect on 10-10-10.