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.

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.

*

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).

*

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.

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!

Election News '09 The LISTS

Well, the lists are in. I can't find a decent link in English for all the lists, but anyway. No matter what they might say, the fact is that people are only interested in the details of the MEP / AVP lists.

(I can't find the MEP 2009 candidate lists on their website. WTH?)

There were two new parties, MSI and CURPA. Two parties who came back from last time (and didn't get a seat in parliament) are PPA and PDR.

The only real drama belonged to MEP, as Marlon Werleman, who was an active member of MEP for 20 years as well as an MP for the last eight, ostensibly stepped aside so that the party can get younger members. See, the problem with that spin is a) There are people older than Marlon Werleman on that list and b) The guy already had his headquarters set up. That does not seem to be the actions of a guy who was expected to be put out to pasture by his party. Pity, too, he was one of the few if not only MP from EITHER party who dared to criticize the actions of his own ministers. Sends a bad signal to politicians who are thinking about ::gasp:: crossing party lines.

In any case, now the fun has really started. The two new parties have to clear another hurdle first, getting enough signatures so that they can participate in the election. I'm not sure if PPA or PDR have to do this, too. All parties are simply brimming with optimism. In order to award all parties the seats that they predicted that they're going to get, we'd need to raise the number of seats from 21 to say, oh, 30.

Seven weeks to go.

Election '09 Reading The Signs

Here we are, less than two months before Election Day, and everything is fairly quiet. Sure, the newspapers don't need to stress about filling the pages, as everyday there are about two dozen candidates from all (ALL!) parties willing to show off how intelligent they are on a certain subject. Sometimes, the results are pathetic, from all (ALL!) parties.

But it IS quiet, though. To me, four years ago at this point there was a lot more rallies, car parades, just more... everything. I'm trying to figure out if the reason why it's quiet is because it's the calm before the storm (of which we will have a taste Aug 7, the presentation of the political lists), or is it something else.

I have fond memories of obsessively refreshing FiveThirtyEight every single day during the U.S. election to see who is up, who is down and which state changed color. In Aruba we don't have such mathematical visions. We only have the art of counting the flags, reading the signs and observing the rallies. But, as I said everything is quiet. There are less flags overall on houses. There are less cars who are sporting decorations of their owner's party affiliation, but those that do, WHOA. It's less car with flag than it is flag with car. Perhaps the owners are trying to conserve energy by seeing if the car will just sail on the road. Hey, it could happen.

Where was I? Oh, right. Less. So, what gives? I don't know. I really don't. Could it be that the recession has hit the political parties and they're less inclined to print up flags and such? Are people still undecided and have therefore refrained from putting a sticker on their cars? I'm betting that's what the smaller parties wish for. Are more people now supporters of the main opposition party but are afraid to show their colors, and instead choosing to display none at all? Or are people going to vote anyway for the ruling party and just don't find it necessary to show that to the world?

End of September, we're going to find out what the answers are to those questions.

De Suikertuin

In the middle of Wilhelminastraat there is a new restaurant, called De Suikertuin. It is housed in a tradional Aruban house with low ceilings and thick walls. I'm willing to bet that the tiles are also still the original state.
But when you enter, there are whispers of the Netherlands. It's in the abstract paintings of tulips on the walls, or the faint murmurs in Dutch you can hear from the kitchen.

It is becoming a fast favorite of mine, because of the service, the ambiance and the food. The first time I went I ordered a soup & sandwich combo for about afl. 15.00 and it was delicious. The service was prompt and pleasant. Today I went again, this time to order 'high tea'. It was truly lovely, everything I imagined it to be when reading about it in my eleventy billion books.

I can definitely recommend it. The only drawback, of course, is the traffic, but the De Suikertuin is well worth it.