By excluding Dutch citizens born outside of the Netherlands Antilles who did not reside on the island before January 1, 2007, from its March 26 constitutional referendum, Bonaire is sending the wrong message. The Netherlands Antilles and Aruba have always fought for equal treatment of Caribbean Dutch citizens in the Netherlands, with the right to vote for the European Parliament obtained last year a good example.
While all Dutch citizens legally residing on the islands when the voter registers are closed normally can participate in both island-level and Central Government elections, the ADB/Nicolaas Executive Council that called the referendum over what the former UPB government negotiated has now decided differently. This, while the United Nations had suggested as a more reasonable cut-off date September 15, 2009, when the Island Council decided to hold the referendum, the island’s third such population consultation exercise.
What it makes it worse is the suspected motive behind the restriction. Opposition party UPB insists that the idea is to keep many Dutch European residents from voting out of fear that they will back the current package for Bonaire to become a special overseas body of the Netherlands that the ADB/Nicolaas Executive Council opposed.
It must be said that in the case of a referendum it is not unusual to deviate from normal voting rights for elections within the Netherlands Antilles, as was already done on several occasions by reducing the age limit from 18 to 16 and allowing long-time non-Dutch immigrants to participate and also will be the case this time in Bonaire. The point is that restricting Dutch citizens goes a step further and raises the question whether such restrictions could also be imposed on Antilleans in the Netherlands.
On the other hand, the resistance in The Hague to allowing Caribbean Dutch citizens to participate in elections for the Second and First Chambers of the Dutch Parliament is equally questionable. After all, the Kingdom Government consisting of basically the Dutch Cabinet takes decisions with far-reaching consequences for the islands, while there is no Kingdom Parliament to control it, creating a clear democratic deficit.
The Council of State in the Netherlands itself had suggested addressing the latter at least somewhat by allowing Antilleans and Arubans to run and vote for the Dutch Parliament. With their impact in any case being minimal because of the difference in scale, it is hard to understand why Dutch politicians have a problem with this.All in all, if the decision to continue together as so-called equal partners in the Dutch Kingdom at least for the time being is to have any real meaning, the necessary content must also be given to a “sense of belonging” as Dutch citizens both on and from both sides of the ocean.
