PAR Commissioners
hand in resignations
FOL to form new island coalition
WILLEMSTAD--The three PAR commissioners Eugene Rhuggenaath (Finance), Zita Jesus-Leito (Constitutional Affairs) and Dennis Jackson (Education) resigned yesterday morning following the rejection by the Island Council on Tuesday at 2:00am of the November 2 accord. Acting political leader of the FOL party Maurice Adriaens has announced that FOL will try to form a new majority in the Curaçao Island Council.
The rejection of the accord became a political crisis in Curaçao. PNP had a party meeting yesterday evening and it is expected that Health Commissioner Gimena van der Gen will also resign today.
Prime Minister and PAR political leader Emily de Jongh-Elhage said in a radio interview that she was very disappointed about the outcome of the Island Council meeting.
“A trajectory of two years ended in disappointment. It’s a pity that the debate didn’t focus on the accord itself. The people didn’t deserve this. I had hoped that alternatives would have been presented, but this wasn’t the case. The only thing I heard was to sell the refinery. It was all a game staged to personally insult people,” she said.
She said she couldn’t understand how the same people who had celebrated the signing of the accord in The Hague one month ago and agreed to the advice of the experts on the future process could reject it now. “Don Martina, former prime minister for MAN, was one of the experts and still MAN votes against the accord. The parties voted against to punish PAR, but in reality they punished the people and the people will pay them back during the elections,” she said.
FOL will meet at its party headquarters this evening. The party is willing to take the initiative to form a new Island Government. Adriaens told The Daily Herald that FOL would negotiate with all parties, trying to get as many parties as possible involved in the formation process.
Regarding the constitutional reform process Adriaens said the Dutch Government had to be approached to find out whether it was willing to negotiate on the accord. However, Dutch caretaker Minister of Administrative Reform and Kingdom Relations Atzo Nicolaï has indicated that the accord cannot be renegotiated and now that Curaçao has rejected it a whole new procedure will be initiated.
In that case, Adriaens said he would prefer to wait until a new Dutch Government was formed. The Dutch had general elections on November 22 and it seems the formation of a new Government will take several months.
Adriaens said it was realistic to say that Curaçao would not obtain its country status on July 1, 2007. “Maybe it’s better this way. We have to draft a good plan before negotiating with the Dutch Government. We shouldn’t be put under pressure just to comply with dates set. We should see to it that we get the best possible deal out of the negotiations,” said Adriaens
Imprisoned FOL leader Anthony Godett issued a press release yesterday stating that FOL was ready to take responsibility in Government. He lamented that he hadn’t been allowed to attend the meeting and stated that with his 15 years of experience in the Island Council he could have prevented the crisis.
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