WILLEMSTAD–St. Maarten is represented on a team of outside observers for Curaçao’s early parliamentary election on Friday, April 28, announced the Supreme Electoral Council (SEC).
The others will come from the Organisation of American States (OAS), Caricom and Aruba. They will visit the Pisas Cabinet and Governor Lucille George Wout, who is supervising the election by instruction of the Kingdom Council of Ministers.
The observers are also to meet with all political parties and the main actors in the process. In addition, they will be given information on the local electoral law and governmental system by the University of Curaçao.
SEC also announced that the carton ballot boxes of last October will again be used. There had been criticism that the modern containers don’t comply with the outdated election rules.
However, the measurements mentioned in the ordinance for voting bins are really too small for the number of ballots at each poll nowadays. Moreover, 300 metal bins would be needed and Aruba had only 125 available. Those used in St. Maarten and the Netherlands are plastic so they don’t comply with the letter of the law either.
It was further explained that carton boxes were actually allowed by the Island Territory Curaçao before the Netherlands Antilles was dismantled per 10-10-10 and the new country Curaçao took over the Antillean regulation instead. Nevertheless, they had been used in Island Council elections already 15 years without any problem or complaint.
Source: The Daily Herald https://www.thedailyherald.sx/islands/65434-st-maarten-observer-for-curacao-elections
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