PHILIPSBURG, Sint Maarten — With amazement, members of the Democratic Party followed or took note of the proceedings of the Central Committee meeting of Parliament on Monday, November 23, 2015.
This amazement had to do with the affronted and disrespectful manner in which MP V. H. Cornelius de Weever sought to call out the Chair on several occasions, during the meeting.
This meeting was called to allow Mr. Julio Romney the opportunity to present his proposals for electoral reform to Parliament, as he did back in 2014.
It is obvious that the people of St. Maarten are anxious to hear what the ideas and possibilities are to take measures and what laws can be drafted or amended to redesign our electoral system and make it more adapt at curbing some of the less positive effects, such as “ship jumping”, floor crossing, instability etc.
In the opinion of the Democratic Party, the majority of people on St. Maarten are in favor of this process to come to tangible results before any talk of an “early” election.
Still, this informative meeting with Mr. Romney saw MP de Weever go after the chair and the DP with a vengeance, going as far as holding up pictures of the Chairlady Wescot and Minister Emil Lee. What was MP de Weever’s message? What was his objective? Did not MP de Weever formally sign his willingness to run on the DP slate with Minister Lee in 2014? Yes or no?
Even more amazing is the fact that in July 2014, MP de Weever publicly lauded the DP as the most experienced, committed and inclusive party. Are we to believe that was all a farce and a way to woo voters to vote for him on the DP slate?
We are so pleased that the Chairperson of Parliament did not allow herself to become engaged in the empty rhetoric of MP de Weever. In fact, MP de Weever is really pushing his luck to see how far he can go, before the Chairperson denies him the floor.
