MP Frankie Meyers didn’t mince any words when he shared his thoughts on the possible postponement or even cancellation of the February 9 2016 snap elections, as intended by NA, DP, US and Independent Members Maurice Lake & Silvio Matser. “It is a blatant disrespect towards the people’s right to cast their vote and judgment. Once it is established that elections are to be held on a specific date, then nobody should play around with that! Voting is the most precious democratic right of our fellow Sint Maarteners, and we can not take that right away from them”.
It seems that the greed for power at any cost is flourishing within the ranks of the majority of eight. MP Meyers pointed out that in the past years very few countries experienced cancelled or postponed elections. Amongst them: Moldova, Thailand, Bangladesh, Ukraine, Nigeria and Haiti. It’s something that is just not happening in the developed first world countries, and it looks like this new coalition is hell bent to add St. Maarten to that list of third world countries where these practices took place.
MP Meyers continued: “Our forefathers went through so many hardships to reach to freedom and now we reached to a point that our own are trying to muzzle our people. We can all have our political opinions and disagree on certain topics, but we never should try to take away the voice of the people by postponing or cancelling elections. That is a slap in the face of democracy!
I cannot grasp that there are those who are willing to revoke the rights of the people for their own political self-gain and power. If we truly believe in the principles of democracy then what needs to be done is clear, the people need to be given the chance to have their voices heard through the vote. When politicians start to encroach on these democratic freedoms once, they will do it again and again and ultimately the country and people will be denied what is considered to be their most basic human right, the right to vote.”