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PHILIPSBURG – The Commission for Electoral Reform hereby informs the public that email – electoral.reform@sintmaartengov.org used in the Public Survey has been rectified.
The Public Survey has been advertised for the past 2 weeks in the local media and it has come to the attention of the Commission that the email was not functioning properly. With the rectification of the email the Commission has decided to extend the Public Survey for two weeks until February 18th 2016. Please find below the questions of the Public Survey.
Question #1
The phenomenon of “ship jumping” by members of Parliament of St. Maarten, can be described as the phenomenon whereby a member of Parliament, after having been elected as a Member of Parliament, leaves the party leaves by which he or she was elected to Parliament, to position him- or herself as an independent member of Parliament, or to join another political party than the one by which he/she was elected to Parliament. As a result of this, a government coalition can lose the support of the majority in Parliament and falls, should the independent Member of Parliament join another majority in Parliament.
Question: What do you think of this phenomenon and would you please motivate your answer?
Question #2
In 1999 the Island Territory St. Maarten, adopted a proposal to amend the Electoral Regulation of the Island Council of the Windward Islands (AB 1979, no. 2). The proposal entailed, briefly, that candidates of a particular party who obtained the most votes, were the first to qualify to be elected as a member of the Island Council (and presently a member of Parliament) regardless of their position on the list of candidates. The so-called preferential votes.
Before this change was introduced, the position where a candidate was placed on the list (from top to bottom) was decisive for the election as member of Parliament.
Question: Do you think that this change has had an effect on ” ship jumping” and consequently on the stability of the Government? Would you please motivate your answer”?
All the reactions will be handed to Government in a separate report. The Commission for Electoral Reform urges the public to reply no later than Thursday, February 18th, 2016, via the following:
Hard Copies – should be delivered at the Government Administration Building at the Department of Records & Information Management (DIV)
Email – electoral.reform@sintmaartengov.org
Phone – 1 721 543 1167
