Aruban Election Results, Status Quo: “an isolated issue that was irrelevant to the election”.

The Aruban election results are in an the ruling party, (MEP) has won and kept its majority in Parliament. According to the AP, the MEP Party won 43% of the vote and won 11 seats in Friday’s parliamentary election.

ORANJESTAD, Aruba Aruba’s ruling party kept its majority in parliament in legislative elections for all 21 seats, election board officials reported on Saturday.

Prime Minister Nelson Oduber’s People’s Electoral Movement party won 43 percent of the vote and won 11 seats in Friday’s parliamentary election, while the main opposition Aruban People’s Party won 33 percent and now has eight seats in parliament.

The ruling party had held a 12-6 majority over the main opposition in the single-house legislature.

The Patriotic Movement of Aruba and the Real Democratic Party won one seat each in the election. The remaining five parties did not win legislative seats.

Voter turnout was at 85 percent, according to the board of elections.

Thus the status quo continues in Aruba as the people have voted. However, there is an amazing and almost unbelievable thought process and comments coming out of Aruba these days from the PM and appointed Task Force with regards to the situation of missing teen Natalee Holloway. Some outsiders thought that the issue might actually be a political issue in determining the next majority or coalition government in Aruba. The potential for Aruba’s tourism to be affected does exist. However, just recently the following comments were made regarding the matter.

From Amigoe, Jeff Lesker of AHATA and a member of the Strategic Communications Task Force stated the following when referencing Aruban tourism and the damage that may be caused by the negative attention caused by the investigation of Natalee Holloway:

“Dat is van groot belang voor de toekomst. This will blow over”, voegde Lesker daaraan toe.
(That is of great importance for our future. This will blow over,” added Lesker…

This is the thought process? It will blow over. Really? I hope this was nor a campaign bumper sticker, “Vote for us and this will blow over”.

Then just over the weekend Prime Minister Nelson Oduber makes the following comment,

On Friday, Oduber described Holloway’s disappearance as a tragedy, but he also called it an isolated issue that was irrelevant to the election.

“We will continue to upgrade our tourist industry and we will concentrate on having a balanced budget by 2009,” Oduber said early Saturday after his victory was assured.

I guess the issue of the bad publicity caused by the mere mention of a “boycott” on the Dr. Phil Show did not also cause members of the Strategic Communications task Force in this same Amigoe article to talk of law suits against the Dr. Phil Show? That would seem a far cry from just the equal time request that has been put forth.
(“… aldus ATA-directeur Myrna Janssen. Overigens worden ook juridische stappen onderzocht.”)

The fact that tourism represents nearly 70% of Aruba’s economy and that American make up about 70% of that number, many Americans question the investigation, Aruba has been so concerned with bad publicity that the Prime Minister formed the Strategic Communications Task Force to combat bad PR and the mere reference of the “B” word causes panic. All this and the Natalee Holloway disappearance although admittedly by the PM is tragic is also just and “isolated issue that was irrelevant to the election.” This is either great spin, a very naive individual or just mere complete misunderstanding of what words to say to formulate a sentence.

A lot of people do not want to see Aruba boycotted as those affected in a boycott are never the ones who usually have created a reason for a boycott; however, no one and I mean no one likes the term “irrelevant” ever used in any sentence when it refers to the disappearance and possible rape and murder of a teenage girl.

As stated I hope there is never a reason for a boycott in Aruba and I hope that Nelson Oduber fulfills his promise to the Holloway/Twitty families by continuing to investigation their daughters disappearance. Remember these comments that were made prior to the election PM?

Prime Minister Nelson Oduber, who has previously said Aruban authorities made mistakes in the early part of the Holloway investigation, added that he could appreciate the “dismay” of the missing teen’s mother.

“But, the case is not concluded. And we will continue to demand that the search for answers into what happened to Natalee will not cease,” Oduber said in a statement released Monday.

The remarks from the prime minister, who is running for re-election this month, are the first since the release Saturday of van der Sloot, 18, and two Surinamese brothers.

However, if there ever is a boycott many can look back to these very insensitive words an wonder why, “an isolated issue that was irrelevant to the election”.