PHILIPSBURG, Sint Maarten – The board of the United St. Maarten Party (USP) on Monday asked the population of St. Maarten to be keenly aware of one simple fact: government broke government. The party board responded to what it called “veiled attempts to spin facts” by care-taker Prime Minister Leona Marlin-Romeo to blame her government’s collapse on others to justify forcing a face-saving election on the population of St. Maarten.
The USP board stressed that the faction leader of the United Democrats (UD) MP Franklin Meyers broke government two weeks ago when he pulled his support (verbally and in writing) from the UD/SMCP coalition. When Meyers pulled his support, the USP board said, the Romeo Marlin cabinet lost its support in Parliament “and we all know what that means, government fell.”
“The Prime Minister attempted on Monday to say that she knew all along about attempts to break the government and sabotage the government ect. We wonder if the Prime Minister knew of these attempts from her own party because that is who eventually broke her government,” the USP said. “Furthermore, the Prime Minister wants to run to the people now and cry sabotage when she is losing power. What ever happened to acting in the best interest of your people? If you knew of those attempts why not say something? We know the answer, because the attempts were from within the UD/SMCP,” the USP board said.
The board added that the UD/SMCP government has been scandal plagued from day 1 and suffered publicly from infighting. The board said that it appeared that UD/SMCP MP’s could not get any information from their Ministers/government, being forced to go public and question why their Ministers were not appearing in government.
“The most recent indictment of the relationship between UD/SMCP MP’s and their government was the invite extended to State Secretary Knops for him to update Parliament on World Bank funds ect. So we needed to invite a Dutch Civil Servant to update us and not our own government? The infighting in the UD/SMCP coalition was/is toxic,” the USP board said.
“Now the Prime Minister invokes article 59 to dissolve Parliament and call for new elections.
Why? There is a strong majority of 9, more than the majority they had of 8. Why an election that the country cannot afford? Government struggles to pay civil servants and other services but now has to find money for an election? Why? For them to save face that’s why and it’s a shame,” the USP board said.
It concluded by stat the UD faction leader gave up on his own government, “a truly historical moment when one of your leaders give up on you.”
