WILLEMSTAD, Curacao (Saturday, August 11, 2012) — The preliminary elections for the Parliament Elections of October 19^th will be held on Saturday, September 8^th and Sunday, September 9^th. Parties without a seat in the Parliament of Curaçao but wishing to participate

with the elections are to participate with the preliminary elections. These parties need to obtain over 700 votes in order to participate with the elections of October 19^th.

The aforementioned is based on the number of valid votes (74,340) during the elections of August 27^th 2010. The parties have to obtain one

percent of these votes during the preliminary elections at the Central Polling Station in Kranshi. The parties Pais from party leader Alex Rosaria, the DP, the MPK from party leader Rignald Lak, and others, are to participate with the preliminary elections.

 The members of the Central Polling Station were presented this morning: chairman is Geomaly Martes and the deputy chairman is former lieutenant governor of Curaçao, Lisa Dindial. She will be especially entrusted with the communication between the personnel of the Registry Office and the Central Polling Station.

The three other members are Charles do Rego, Raymond ‘Pacheco’ Römer and Edward Panneflek. Irving Roosberg, Anthmar Kraanwinkel and Theo Caris are the three acting members.

Minister of Administration, Planning and Service, Carlos Trinidad, said this morning the large difference between the current electoral regulation and the one when Curaçao was part of the Netherlands Antilles is that nobody is officially a member of the Central Polling Station with the current regulation. In the past, the lieutenant governor was acting head in her capacity as chairman and head of the Registry Office.

Now the minister chooses and appoints all members. The minister remains politically responsible though for the elections.

Martes added that hopefully the polling cards can be mailed starting the first week of October. Everyone must receive the polling card eight days before for the elections at the latest. People who haven’t received a polling card can collect this at the Registry Office two weeks before the elections. Those who have lost their polling card can collect a duplicate.

Considering the short space of time, it won’t be possible to make preparations so that people, who haven’t received a polling card for whatever reason, could still cast their vote on presentation of their ID-card.