PHILIPSBURG, Sint Maarten — Leader of the United St. Maarten (US) party Pamela Gordon-Carty on Sunday said while she was not surprised by the declaration by MP Akeem Arrindell as an independent member of Parliament, she would have preferred that the MP used a more integer manner of walking away from the party “regardless of the reason that has been expressed.”
The US board had already earlier in the weekend stated that Arrindell’s “excuse” to Parliament and the public was void of the truth. Now its party leader expressed her disappointment in the way Arrindell made his move and the fact that the electoral laws “allow or permits such unfortunate events to take place.”
She explained that MP Arrindell had spoken to her via phone the day after she was elected leader of the USP. “MP Akeem called me and expressed congratulatory wishes and was looking forward to work and move forward with me at the helm. I had expressed that he has my full support and I will work with him to the best of my abilities,” Gordon-Carty said.
“I also expressed that we will be working closely, and what he considered to be his shortcomings for me were not viewed as any impediment and that together we will work on it to make his tenure a successful one for all involved. I had conveyed to him that I would be arranging a meeting the following week with the board where both parties can update me on documents, convey their grievances to which we will sort things out together as a team.”
“It’s unfortunate that MP Akeem didn’t come back to me at least before conveying his decision to the public. I believe in communication, problem-solving at the table with mutual respect. I am convinced that this could have been handled differently if opportunity was given. Needless to say that it remains a fact that none of the departing parliamentarians received individually sufficient votes to have afforded them an outright seat that they claimed and walked away with. But in all honesty, I wish both MP’s much of success in their political careers,” she said.
The US leader reiterated that the party has laid out its road map of being for the people, with the people and by the people whether in or out of government. “We will be focusing more and more on the overall well-being of the population and try to balance out the best moves to reflect this. Our goal is for the population to actually feel some of the pressure of challenging times being alleviated by the different projects that we will be executing. We will remain focus on the well-being of the people,” she concluded.
