Heyliger supports wife’s vision and fight for better St. Maarten | THE DAILY HERALD

United People’s (UP) party #4 candidate Grisha Heyliger-Marten (right) with husband suspended Member of Parliament Theo Heyliger. 

 

PHILIPSBURG — The just-ended year has been a trying one for suspended Member of Parliament Theo Heyliger with his legal troubles having a severe impact on his ability to continue serving St. Maarten as he was elected to do. 

  Faced with his inability to continue on his chosen path of public service by forces outside of the electoral system and by his battle with cancer, Heyliger has put his confidence in the candidacy of his wife Grisha Heyliger-Marten, the number four candidate on the United People’s (UP) party list. 

  Speaking about his wife’s first-time run for Parliament, Heyliger said on Sunday night, “I encouraged her to make the decision she saw as the best way to tackle the ills facing our country. She chose the path of going to the people like I did for the first time in 1995 and asking to be your representative.

  “I recognise her ever-increasing passion for St. Maarten and her fierce warrior spirit. I support this fully and see so much of what I want in a better St. Maarten possible with her drive and vision.” 

  Heyliger has had to sit out this election, a first for him. The only time Heyliger was not on a ballot was for one of the last elections for the then-Parliament of the Netherlands Antilles. It was an election he did not believe in, because it would and in the end did not make St. Maarten better.

  “Unlike those days, forced to sit on the side-lines now when the people of this country, who are the true bosses of St. Maarten, have not rejected me or been given the chance to do so is a hard slap in the face of democracy and the so-called self-governance we purportedly have,” said Heyliger. 

  “This situation being what it is with the Prosecutor’s Office determined to destroy me at any cost, Grisha entering the political arena was at first a hard choice for me when I think of what she and my family and you the people of St. Maarten have had to endure. Grisha’s determination to not sit and just like our St. Maarten suffer is enough for me to say this with full confidence: a vote for her can be seen as a strong message against what is happening to this country,” said Heyliger. 

Source: The Daily Herald https://www.thedailyherald.sx/islands/93757-heyliger-supports-wife-s-vision-and-fight-for-better-st-maarten

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