St. Maarten News – “Lack of leadership, not sticking to commitments and turning their back on the people of St. Maarten,” said Gracita Arrindell yesterday about her reasons for leaving the United People’s Party and returning to the revived People’s Progressive Alliance (PPA) as its leader for the September 26 parliamentary elections. Arrindell declined to elaborate on that statement, saying that “everything else is melee and I am not interested in it.”
The PPA-leader hosted a press conference at a conference room of the Pasanggrahan Hotel. Oranje fabric – the party’s color – covered the entrance door and the table where she was seated. A PPA-banner and a poster with a more than life size picture of the party leader (Vote PPA; strong, stable secure St. Maarten) graced the room. Has orange become the new green?
Arrindell does not want to deal with that green past with the UP, she is looking at the future. “In 2010, the PPA was approached by the UP to work together and we did that,” is the only thing she wants to say about it.
The PPA burst onto the political scene in 2003, after Arrindell left the Democratic Party and spearheaded a campaign that gave the party one seat in the Island Council. In the 2007 elections, the PPA failed to hang on to that seat and when the elections in 2010 came around, Arrindell won a parliament seat as a member of the United People’s party. In the 2014 elections, she did not win enough votes to keep her seat.
The defeat at the polls did not bring her down; Arrindell stepped away from politics, but six months ago she began working with party president Don Hughes on an election program that aims to change the political landscape. “There will be a new way of doing politics in St. Maarten,” she said at the press conference, “The old way has to stop.”
Asked however whether the PPA would work together with a party that has a candidate with a criminal conviction to his name, Arrindell became evasive, saying that “everybody deserves a second chance” and that it is up to the electorate to decide whether they want to elect someone like that.
Other than that, Arrindell was as assertive as ever (more than before, she said), even telling journalists that the PPA “is going to win these elections.”
Source: Today SXM Gracita Arrindell leads PPA in elections: Has orange become the new green?
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