PAR wins elections again

August 29, 2010 1:54 PM

The PAR party led by Antillean Prime Minister Emily de Jongh-Elhage won Friday's early elections for a new Island Council that is to become the first Parliament of Country Curaçao by capturing 22,505 votes, good for six seats outright and two residual seats, for a total of eight.

However, the biggest winner can perhaps arguably be seen as "Movementu Futuro Korsou" (MFK) founded less than three months ago by Gerrit Schotte, the biggest vote getter in the January Antillean Parliament election on the combined MAN/NPA/FK "Lista di Kambio." The new party ended up with 15,949 votes, good for four seats outright and one residual seat for a total of five.

Not only that, but MFK has a good chance of getting into government, as the current PAR/PNP/FOL coalition fell short of a majority of 11 seats in the 21-seat council, because the FOL led by Anthony Godett (4,813 votes) and PNP led by Humphrey Davelaar (4,590 votes) earned only one seat each.

Also a winner was "Pueblo Soberano" (PS) led by Helmin Wiels with 13,661 votes, good for three seats outright and one residual seat, for a total of four. The only other party to get seats was MAN led by Eunice Eisden with 6,529 votes, good for one seat outright and one residual seat, for a total of two.

A total of 75,549 valid votes were cast, for a turnout of 66 per cent. The seat threshold was 3,540.6. The Democratic Party (DP) with its new leader Norberto Ribeiro came fairly close to a seat with 3,043 votes, while PAIS led by Alex Rosaria got 2,198 votes, "Partido Laboral" (PL) led by Errol Goeloe 509 votes and NPA led by Carlos Monk 336 votes.

Because pro-independence "Pueblo Soberano" (4 seats) stated again last night that it will not work with PAR and is at any rate against the current agreements for the dismantling of the Netherlands Antilles, while MAN (2 seats) has also opposed the latter strongly, PAR (8 seats) is likely to look towards MFK (6 seats) to form a majority, possibly with or without (one of) the largest party's current coalition partners FOL and PNP.

There is of course also a possibility that MFK and PS opt to work together without PAR for a total of 9 seats, which combined with the two seats of MAN could form a minimal majority as well, possibly even complemented FOL and/or PNP. This is considered highly unlikely though, in light of the extreme position of PS concerning the process of constitutional change for Curaçao to become an autonomous country within the Dutch Kingdom.

28 August, 2010