Centre democrat D66 of former Minister of Government Reform and Kingdom Relations Alexander Pechtold emerged as Saba’s winner in the European elections, writes The Daily Herald.
The elections for Members of the European Parliament were held throughout the Dutch kingdom on Thursday, but the official results for Saba were not announced until Monday.
For the first time Sabans were able to cast their votes in the European elections. Only 119 out of 817 eligible voters, or approximately 14 per cent of the total number of voters, actually came to the voting bureau to take part in the election. With almost 50 per cent of the vote, D66 emerged as the big winner of the election. In total, 116 valid votes were cast in the election on Saba, 54 of which were cast for D66.
D66 number-one candidate Sophie In ‘t Veld was the biggest vote-getter in the election with 43 votes.
Socialist Party (SP) came in second with 26 votes. Number 14 candidate on the SP list Jamila Yahyaoui received the most preferential votes from Saba voters with 18 votes.
The other Dutch political parties received only a handful of votes from the Saba electorate. Among these, Labour PvdA received seven votes and Party for Freedom PVV and green-left GroenLinks both got four votes. Two votes were cast for Christian Union/SGP. Conservative VVD, Article50, Pirate Party, 50Plus and Liberal Democratic Party received one vote each. There were two blank votes and one invalid vote cast, Island Governor Jonathan Johnson stated Monday.