arubagirl

Aftershocks

The results of the elections keep on reverberating everywhere, but nowhere so noticeable as in the losing party, MEP.

They have just plumb lost their minds. I have no other explanations for the utter, UTTER nonsense that they're spouting in the party's press releases. A recurring theme is AVP's (winning party. yay!) decision to fix up the seat of government. The 'problem', according to MEP is that AVP has only been busy 'painting buildings' and not been busy with the actual job of governing this country.Never mind that they can't govern yet because the swearing-in is in two weeks' time. Then the song has been that AVP are actually "squatters", because how dare they enter the building. OH DEAR LORD.

The funny thing is that in the same edition where MEP is spouting their 'been busy only with buildings' line, you see several pictures of the AVP's leader and Aruba's future PM meeting with Valero, unions, trade associations, Valero, the Governor and Valero. And MEP finishes their articles with that zinger  (insert HEAVY SARCASTIC air quotes)  to AVP "start governing or disappear". DID I MENTION THAT THEY HAVEN'T BEEN SWORN IN YET????

And then there was the issue of sharing the loot (loot = parliament seats). Ay, those seats. Here's the deal. Some weeks before the election, the Election Committee reviews the candidates' info, the colors of the parties, the order in which the party lists appear on the ballot, and the order of the candidates on the list. Once that's done, that's it, no changes.

Someone on a list can enter parliament in the following ways:
1) Be elected outright: that  means get the amount of votes cast divided by the amount of parliament seats. This year that meant that you had to get about 2600 votes. Only 4 people managed that this time: Mike Eman (AVP) 8,000 votes, Nel Oduber (MEP) 6,400 votes, Marisol Lopez-Tromp (MEP) 2,800 votes and Mike de Meza (AVP) 2,700 votes.
2) By obtaining 'preferred votes'. Then you'd need to have the amount of votes your party obtained divided by the amount of seats your party got and then divide THAT by half. I think.
3) By entering via your place in line on the party's list.

And it's that third method where the rub lies. Numbers 1-4 on MEP's list are also nicely in the same descending order in votes, but for example, number five actually placed 10th in getting votes, but he's going to parliament, because hey, that was the order established by the party. Number TWELVE on the list got more votes than number five, but that just sucks for Twelve. Nel Oduber, giving him credit (cough) where credit is due (choke), relinquished his parliament seat in order to get young blood in parliament. So instead of numbers 1-8, now numbers 2-9 are going to parliament. However, number 9 on the list placed a (somewhat dismal) 16 on the vote getting leader board and yet she gets to go to parliament.
Nel Oduber called on his fellow old timers to follow his lead, but all of them decided to keep their butts firmly in the plush parliament seats. I don't know what the young bloods (specifically numbers 12, 13 & 14) in MEP think about this, but I can imagine that they aren't thrilled. They can leave the party and take their 500 - 600 votes somewhere else, or they can stick it out with the (very reasonable) hope that they will get a higher number on the list next election and thus increasing their chances of entering parliament. It's a very interesting time for MEP right now. I had hoped that the election would force MEP to push their younger (and in my opinion, SANER) candidates to the forefront, but right now it doesn't seem likely.

Time will tell.

Election Reflection

A week has passed.

In the meantime, I did a quick side trip to Houston, TX, and drove to San Antonio. S.A. is a beautiful city, but I really could see the recession hitting hard. Most touristic venues were very quiet. Aruba should stop bitching and be happy that we are still getting a decent amount of numbers. My plane coming back from the States was almost full, so I'm thinking that's a good sign.

In any case, since I left the Monday right after the election, I haven't had a chance to write anymore about the election. I can understand if you're sick of it, but me, I have been waiting for this moment a LONG TIME.

I had hope that after this (crushing) defeat MEP would have the guts to do some self-reflection and see where they went wrong. No such dice, at least not publicly. Number 3 on the list is definitely positioning herself as the leader of MEP, whatever she may say to the contrary. Since when does a number 3 on the list speak for a part? Where are 1 and 2???
The mantra of MEP is right now "Cumpli Awor" (Fulfill [the promises] now). Oh please. For 8 years you have shown no leadership or managing skill and you want to tell other people what to do? Just ... shut up.

AVP already submitted their candidates for ministers. Last time it took MEP more than a month! I'm okay with most of it, other than I think that Andy Lee as President of Parliament is a complete waste of his abilities in the financial sector and I wished that Dowers would get Public Health instead of Visser, but that last one couldn't be avoided, I suppose. Still, the very big potential for conflict of interest makes me uneasy. (Visser owns several pharmacies).

Let's see what the next four years will bring.

Change

In the end, it was a rout. AVP grew with 10 THOUSAND more votes. It got FOUR more seats than the nearest opposition party.

And it all started with a voting district in Noord.

 A voting district is just an administrative division used in elections. Winning or losing one doesn't necessarily define the results. The total amount of votes does. But one can see trends in how districts are turning out to try and predict the outcome of an election.

I was a party official at one of the voting districts in Noord. My day started extremely early at 5:45 to get everything ready. I arrived at the voting district 40 minutes before they opened to set up the chairs, the table, the lists. The district officials were there already, setting up their stuff.
I was surprised that there was a line already of voters, but I thought that this was just people who wanted to vote before they went to work.
I was wrong. The lines never stopped until 3:30. It was one after the other, some in their political colors, but most came dressed in neutral colors. The number on their voting card is called out by the president, and the vice president calls out their names. The president confirms if this is correct by checking their ID and proceeds to give the voter a ballot and his or her ID back. The confirmation was really necessary because several times folks came to the wrong voting district.
The voting booths themselves were different this year, and I didn't like them very much, but in the end they don't make that much difference.

At seven the voting booth closed (as all of them are supposed to do) and now the waiting started to check the counting process. The ballots are counted on the spot, in front of whomever, so that the results are transparent. There was a problem at my voting district because the officials apparently had a math problems of the amount of people who voted (their voting cards) and the amount of ballots given out. It took TWO HOURS to sort it out before the voting bin was opened. TWO HOURS!

In the meanwhile results started coming in. The first one, as I said, was in Noord. AVP got about twice as much votes as the nearest party. This was a district that AVP lost last time. I did a very happy quiet dance as we were still in the voting district, together with MEP supporters and I didn't want to rub it in. Much. Even if we didn't win the election, we would have won at least that voting district.

But we kept on winning. In Paradera, in Tanki Leendert. More districts in Noord. In Pos Chiquito, in San Nicolaas. Oranjestad and Madiki were even greener. Dakota stayed green although other parties campaigned heavily there. In almost all districts AVP grew in votes.

At long last only three voting districts remained and the preliminary results were 11-9-1. It was two in the morning and I was exhausted, but happy with the results I went to sleep and woke up to the news that it wasn't 11, it was TWELVE seats.

It's still sinking in. It was an incredible night. I'm fairly sure that this government is, at one point going to disappoint me, but today I'm very happy. Good job, Aruba.

I Wasn't Even Close

12 AVP
8 MEP
1 DR

Is this how US Democrats felt November 5th 2008? 'Cause it feels GREAT!

At some point I'll write about everything.

This Is It

Only one more day. The 'dry laws' are in effect, which means that no more alcohol is allowed to be sold to locals until Saturday six am. Which also means that there was a run on alcohol today and therefore there is more alcohol in homes than usual. But oh well. We try to keep the drinking to a minimum. Don't we get points for trying? 

All of a sudden we're going to be election central for our voting district, so I have no idea when I'm able to get online.

This was a better campaign than most  by all parties. There were bike trips and walkathons and jump ups and health checks and lots of community helping. I hope this trend continues. Of course there were some people who were doing the same old, same old, but I don't think they have had such an impact this year as last time. I hope.

My predictions:

10 AVP
9 MEP
2 DR

Election '09 Rangel, Parades & Voting Booths

A few days or so ago a former government official named Rangel accused Min. Wever (MEP) of buyng petroleum products for his boat at local Venzuelan prices.
What exactly is it with Venezuelan officials that they want to meddle with election in other countries? If you're so sure of your claims, bring proof, otherwise, shut up.

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Yesterday the verdict was in, no more parades for AVP and MEP until the 25th. What a relief. Let's see who gets the parade on the 27th (victory parade).

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A startling new report was aired by ATV yesterday night. Usually our voting booths resemble an old-fashioned changing-room, completel sealed with a dark curtain. The specifications of these booths are required by law. Now, for some reason, the current government wants to change the law and have them less high and way less private. I don't agree with this AT ALL. It wasn't broke, so what exactly are we trying to fix here? This isn't the Netherlands, where no one cares what you vote. If one can see the motion of your hands or the direction of your eyes, that's already telling. According to  ATV's report, the new voting booths are already being built, without the new proposal being turned into law!
What I do find weird is that no newspaper has picked up on this. I wonder why that is.

Election News '09 The AVP Parade

Warning: this is going to be long one

It's now 12:15 Sunday evening, and I have to wake up in 7 hours to go to church tomorrow. I also still haven't written about last week's parade.

You know, I do realize how silly it is to the outsider, having car parades during campaigns. Both tourists and visiting Arubans often have this WTF look when I tell them about it. It is a tradition, though, like the New Hampshire primaries or kissing babies.

I can remember the exact moment when I woke up and thought: "Hey! Politics and policy do affect my island and my life!" This shocking moment came about when the Netherlands and the United States signed a treaty, and the government coalition fell apart. I should write about that whole sordid tale at some point, although it doesn't touch me that directly.

Anyway, ever since then I have been paying attention to Aruban poltics and U.S. politics. I'll bet you that I'm one of the people in Aruba who knows about Kay Bailey Hutchinson. Also, why couldn't McCain pick her instead of Palin, but moving on.

Last time there was an election I was more active than this year. It's not that this election matters less to me than the previous one, it's just that I was asked last time and I glady helped. I wrote about the parade from last time too:

I will say this, though: Driving in the AVP parade on Sunday was something that lifted up my spirits inmensely. There are other people on Aruba who feel the way that I do. Turns out that there are many more. In those hours that the parade drove from Driemasterstraat to Ponton to Tanki Flip to Bubali to Jaburibari to Dakota to Mahuma to Balashi to San Nicolaas, in those hours, Aruba was green. I don't know if this will last until September, but for me, that Sunday was a beautiful thing.

And it didn't hurt that I saw many MEP supporters having a sour look on their face.

What happend last time that I didn't write about that there was supposed to be another district name among that list: Santa Cruz. Santa Cruz is THE stronghold of MEP, kind of like Oklahoma for the Republicans. When I saw that there was this big parade of 600 cars or so, I was just salivating at the thought of going to Santa Cruz to show those Mepistas. Right before we had to make the turn at the traffic light we found out that the police askes us to not go anymore through Santa Cruz. I was incredibly disappointed.

People who ask that a hurricane will hit their neighbourhood usually have no idea what they're asking for.

Well, this time the parade was about 3x bigger than last time's. And there were many many more people on the side of the road cheering us on. The looks were even more sour, if that was possible. And I got my wish. With this bigass parade in my back, we went through Santa Cruz. And there were AVP people there, for sure. At THE intersection of Santa Cruz, where it sort of a MEP island with their deceased founder's paternal home, their political headquarters and a fundraising even for one of their candidates, you can imagine that there were people of MEP.

I was in the first 20% of the parade, more or less.

I was taking pictures as we were going through, to see the contrast of the green with the yellow, I thought it was cool. Then, one lady in a MEP t-shirt pointed to me and said "Dal'e! Dal'e". (Hit her! Hit her!) Just then the parade sped up and that was it. My first instinct was to say: "Oh YEAH. Come and try it, bitch!". But now that I've had a week to reflect about it, it kind of scares me that someone was so pissed off that they were going to hit me. And I seriously don't think it was because of the picture taking. There were reports after, by other people. Cars were shaken, windshields hit. Two women were arrested by the police, who by the way, were there in inadequate numbers.

Look, the parade was humongous, and no matter how much MEP tries to spin it, it was big and they know it. Is it reflective of the election results? I don't have hope. No, that's not true actually. I don't dare to have hope. But I do know that this election is more contentious than that I can remember. These kinds of stunts don't do Aruba any good. Now, don't get me wrong, there have been reports that AVP has done this as well. But the arrests? Took place at this parade. I got threatened? At this parade. That's not me hearing something, this happened to me.

The new crop (all of them) have so far definitely raised the level of politics. Some more than others, but in the whole, it's been better. But there is this core, this nucleus of people who are not going to let grievances go from decades past. I usually relish the campaign period. This time I can't wait for it to be over, no matter who wins.

About Spirits And Breath

This is a literal quote from the MEP website regarding today's parade:

Sinembargo partido MEP tin un sugerencia na henter comunidad Arubano y esey ta cu ora cu e parada di AVP ta pasa den boso bario, pa corda cera boso porta y bentananan completamente y p’asina evita cu e spirito y rosea malo di AVP drenta boso hogarnan.

However MEP has a suggestion to the entire Aruban community and that is that when the AVP parade is passing by in your neighbourhood, to remember to close your doors and windows completely to thus avoid that the bad spirit and bad breath of AVP will enter your homes.

OH.MY.GOD. These are the folks who are governing us right now. This is the government. This is the party that is right now governing us. I'm just . . . speechless. SPEECHLESS.

Oh wait, it's MEP. Why am I surprised that they're spouting this nonsense about bad spirits?

Elections '09: Update

1. Four more weeks to go.
2. Due to my mother's excellent connections, we got AVP t-shirts. We are holding on tight to those t-shirts, because they're fairly scarce. My mother decorated hers with sequins. No joke.
3. Evelien Wever-Croes called on the MEP supporters to not hinder tomorrow's parade like "AVP did with MEP". Ha! That's so cute. In case you've been living under a rock Evelien, that's exactly what MEP has done in the past.
4. Booshi Wever (MEP) called Rudy Lampe (RED) a pedophile two years ago in newsmedia. Rudy Lampe entered a complaint, but the disctrict attorney did not find it was necessary to prosecute. Rudy then went to the Court of Appeals, who ruled that, why yes, this accusation goes beyond politics as usual. Booshi Wever had a reply to the verdict in the newspaper today that was just . . . bizarre. Basically he told Rudy Lampe to not forget that he (Wever) has family too. I like Booshi's articles, always entertaining, always blunt, but this just didn't make any sense.
5. Tomorrow there is an AVP parade, and I'm going (duh!). As are several cousins. I'll take my camera along.
6. I went to a meet & greet this week for a female candidate on the AVP list. It was very well done, but I still haven't made up my mind.
7. My mother and I went to a 'happening' yesterday of another candidate. It started at 6pm according to FACEBOOK, so we were there at 6:30pm. THere were only a handful of people with EXTREMELY LOUD MUSIC. We milled around for 1 minute, then decided to leave. We ended up at Rembrandt. This is the second time that we leave a happening for Rembrandt.
8. FOUR!MORE!WEEKS!

This 'N That

The elections are now dominating the daily news here. Heated discussions are propping up now everywhere. Only 6 more weeks to go. All non-parliamentary parties, CURPA, MSI, PPA and PDR, were able to garner signatures in order to be allowed to participate in the elections.

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...And the hurricane season is here. As of right now we have a named TS in the Atlantic Ocean, and behind that a Tropical Depression that looks like it means business. Oh, no wait, I just checked and we have two named storms. Ana & Bill. Neither of them look like they'll threaten Aruba, just Aruba's nice breeze.

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I'm on FACEBOOK. I resisted as along as I could. Then I thought "what the heck, let me see what all the hoopla is about. I probably won't like it anyway". HA! It sucked me in like a hickey. I marvel at all the people who put name and last name up there, feeling safe behind the 'authorization' that to view a profile. Of the twenty people who approved me, about half did so without knowhing who I was.

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Last weekend was nuts. That's why there was a delay in posting about the lists. A good friend of mine married last Friday and I had a blast. It was mostly a family party, with a few friends thrown in. The day after that I had dinner with the married couple and another old school friend, and the day after THAT the married couple and I went on a yacht together with his & her family. It was lovely. The water was incredibly gorgeous. I didn't take my camera with me because I wasn't sure what kind of boat it was. Anyway, having been badly sunburned in the past I decided to bring a dress as a sun cover. Ha! Hahahahahahaha!It turns out the bodice of my dress was almost exactly cut like my bathing suit top.... and therefore didn't cover anything. When I looked in the mirror that evening? There was a scream. Anyway, so now I'm peeling. Peeling like a red banana. So attractive.

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Aruba's rumor mill must be broken. Last Thursday at a family party I was asked about my 'boyfriend'. Tsk tsk tsk. Gotta get that thing fixed. Stat!

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We have a sort of Sam's Club on the island, and for the longest time my mom adamantly resisted becoming a member. This month we became members. The apocalypse just came an inch closer.