Is It A Stand for Heyliger or for St. Maarten?

Although it is not quite clear to many what was the real reason for the march in Philipsburg Wednesday, one thing is clear, the turn out and the people attending suggests that it was more a show of support for Heyliger’s situation, as a sitting MP, than it was for any other reason.

Shortly after the government was formed, Heyliger being the one named as formateur, charged with the responsibility of putting the government together, it was published that the prosecutor’s office was seeking permission from the joint court to prosecute MP Heyliger for allegations of vote buying. That became as a shock to many in the community and people began expressing feelings of the Dutch taking down the leaders of political groups whom they often refer to as corrupt. MP Heyliger was the recipient of the most personal votes in the recently held election but he is bared from becoming a minister in the government of St. Maarten.

Other leaders and key political personalities that were picked up for questioning in other cases of corruption includes, MP Frans Richardson, former MP Matser, former MP P Illidge, former MP L Laveist, former MP Romain Laville and some other former ministers, none of whom were seeing in this march. According to sceptics who are questioning the validity of the demonstration, no one marched when they were picked up.

Rhoda Arrindell one of the organizers of the march who was directly involve with putting the petition request together, made it clear that the green light that was given to prosecute Heyliger was the proverbial “straw that broke the camel’s back” and set the motion in gear to stage the march.

So then, if this protest action was inspired by the Prosecutor’s office seeking to prosecute a sitting member of Parliament, are we to see this happening again if another MP is to be picked up? Or is this a call for St. Maarten and its people to come together and take to the streets and say enough is enough with the way the justice system has been treating those in leadership voted into office by the population?

###