A testing time
When Democratic Party leader Sarah Wescot-Williams told her party’s final election campaign public meeting last Wednesday night that the DP had already won the elections, the emphatic manner in which she made the forecast must have caused some raised eyebrows. As things turned out, the official results show that she apparently knew what she was talking about.
We congratulate the Democratic Party, its leader and its other candidates on their victory at the polls, as indeed we congratulate the National Alliance, its leader William Marlin and its other candidates for their successes and for having fought a good and spirited fight. We now look forward to their robust opposition as much as we look forward to a period of improved governance characterised by openness, transparency and unfailing accountability.
The election results show that the Democratic Party captured 6,639 or 49.4 per cent – less than half – of the 13,444 valid votes cast, and fewer votes than the National Alliance (5,583) and Gracita Arrindell’s People’s Progressive Alliance (1,107) combined total of 6,690 votes or 49.7 per cent of the valid votes.
The reality of the vote count should be sufficient to remind the Democratic Party that there are some serious social and other issues in the society that it can ill afford to ignore and that it would fail to fix at its own peril in the run-up to the first Parliamentary elections for new country St. Maarten expected before Kingdom Day, December 15, 2008.
Now that the Island Council elections have come and gone and we await the swearing-in of the new Island Council and the new configuration of portfolios for members of the Executive Council, we hope the political parties are mature enough to leave behind them quickly the animosity generated by the election campaign, thereby allowing for rapid political healing.
There should be no mistake about this. While the election campaign at times threatened to, but did not degenerate into one of sleaze and mud-slinging, it was bitterly fought and the body politic has been seriously fractured.
Much to their credit, the political parties have been heeding the Lt. Governor’s appeal and have already removed much of their campaign material from public view. This should contribute to the political healing that’s needed.
In the period ahead, foremost in the minds of our St. Maarten politicians must be the fact that Country St. Maarten is still a nation in waiting and if a stillbirth is to be prevented the tasks at hand must be pursued with fervour and diligence unsurpassed. This is especially so given the uncertainties associated with the political landscape in Curaçao.
It is important because we sometimes get the distinct impression that there are many in the political directorate who are not fully conscious of the enormity of the tasks that lie ahead or who underestimate the volume and the complexity of what needs to be achieved in time for December 15, 2008, and St. Maarten’s rendezvous with destiny.
The next 18 months will truly be a testing time that will demand nothing but the best from all and sundry.
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