PHILIPSBURG--New Parliament Chairperson Member of Parliament and Democratic Party (DP) leader Sarah Wescot-Williams says the “coalition of eight” intends to hold a meeting of Parliament this week on the draft national decree submitted to Governor Eugene Holiday by the Marcel Gumbs Cabinet to dissolve Parliament and call snap elections early next year.

 

She said at a coalition press conference held in Parliament House on Sunday afternoon that a request had been made to Government to obtain a copy of the draft decree. When the request is complied with the meeting will be convened for MPs to state their positions.

 

The coalition of eight had a motion to table last Monday’s calling for the draft decree to come to Parliament, but now-former Second Vice-Chairman of Parliament Cornelius de Weever closed the session before any debate.

 

National Alliance (NA) leader MP William Marlin said St. Maarten’s constitutional issues should be dealt with at home and not by any outside parties. His stance was in response to calls for the Kingdom Council of Ministers to become involved in the impasse between the coalition of eight and the Cabinet which has not resigned in the face of a motion of no confidence passed again all seven members on September 30.

 

Marlin decried Prime Minister Marcel Gumbs and the United People’s (UP) party that supports him for “throwing the Governor under the bus” by refusing to sign, submitting a draft dissolution decree and making public a 2013 letter the Governor wrote in response to one from Wescot-Williams in her then capacity of Prime Minister.

 

Wescot-Williams said the letter needed to be taken in context and the 2013 political situation was very different from the current one.

 

If the Cabinet had “played by decency” the coalition of eight could have had its ministers in place this week, Marlin said, but the current Cabinet has decided “to act pig-headed” and has done everything to the Governor “but throw stones at him.”

 

The Gumbs Cabinet and UP continue “to show the consistency in their inconsistency” with the Prime Minister refusing to sign the decree for the new coalition’s Cabinet to take office, said Marlin. He pointed out that Gumbs’ Cabinet had not obtained the signature of former Prime Minister Wescot-Williams, but now was insisting that the incoming Cabinet needs his signature.

 

Again highlighting Gumbs’ comments about the ills of “ship-jumping” and the end of the carnival of government changes, Marlin said Gumbs “must realise he was the biggest troupe leader in the last carnival. … Now, when others want to be troupe leaders, the carnival has to stop.”

 

Now is not the time to bring changes to regulations about ship-jumping, he said. If UP wanted changes, those should have come before the September 30 motion.

 

Responding to comments from UP deputy leader MP Franklin Meyers about the “hypocrisy” of Marlin being in a coalition with now former UP parliamentarian Maurice Lake after calling him a “pathological liar” several times in the past year, Marlin said that in politics one was “always critical of opponents.”

 

Lake said he was tired of political leaders’ two tongues and it was time for decisions to be made in the “best interest of the people, not self.”

 

United St. Maarten Party (USP) leader MP Frans Richardson said the Cabinet was “misusing the young democracy” and should stop that and “make their positions available to the country.” He called on St. Maarten people “to speak out and speak loud” about their discontent as the impasse between Parliament and the cabinet rolls into its 19th day.

 

To avoid any impasse in the future, Richardson said there was a severe need for electoral reform.

 

Crime

 

Crime has “gotten worse by the day” and it is evident that the plan of Justice Minister Dennis Richardson is not effective, said Marlin in response to an execution-style killing in Simpson Bay on Sunday morning.

 

Wescot-Williams also called out the Justice Minister for staying away from Parliament on Wednesday when he should have been talking about his crime prevention plan. The Minister instead had claimed his staff was not able to go with him to Parliament because they were afraid of the protest in front of the Government Administration Building, she said. This was not the case, she added, because the staff had been at Parliament waiting on the Minister, who never arrived.

 

With actions such as this by the Justice Minister and the numerous occasions on which Ministers had disregarded Parliament or refused to give information, Wescot-Williams said the motion of no confidence had been looming for some time. “The only thing wrong with the motion is it took so long. … If one member could have brought it, it could have come sooner,” she said.

 

The Daily Herald