During a press conference, Parliamentarian Mike de Meza provided clarity regarding his political position and the possibility of becoming a minister in the current government, while re-emphasizing his disagreement with several points of governance, primarily the HOFA (Landsverordening houderschap en financiële beheer Aruba / National Ordinance on Aruba’s Financial Management and Holding).
Parliamentarian Mike de Meza brought a strong and direct clarification during his recent press conference regarding his political future and his current position. In his words, he did not sugarcoat anything and laid everything clear on the table.
According to De Meza, it is evident that he is ministerial material. However, he underlines that the question of whether he has the desire to become a minister right now is a completely different matter. For the parliamentarian, his commitment does not depend on a ministerial post to serve the people. He explains that he can serve the community of Aruba both as a minister and as a parliamentarian, where he bears the responsibility of being critical in order to defend the interests of all citizens of Aruba.
According to the parliamentarian, this critical role in parliament is a task he executes with loyalty to the general interest of Aruba, and this never changes because of the person sitting in the ministerial chair.
For De Meza, the starting point is always the general interest of Aruba, where the promise made to the country comes before the interest of the political party. He insists that it has nothing to do with speaking ill of a party, but rather focusing on facts proven by the reality of our country and what has transpired.
During the conference, he brought forward that he has total clarity regarding the points he considers extremely important. One of the topics that has caused the greatest concern for the parliamentarian is the discussion surrounding the Rijkswet (Kingdom Act).
In this context, De Meza is emphatic: the people of Aruba are against any attempt to touch our autonomy. For the parliamentarian, decisions affecting our autonomy must remain in the hands of the people of Aruba themselves, and cannot be decided by a single politician, but must be a decision originating from the people themselves.
At the same time, the parliamentarian acknowledges that he can have sympathy and understanding as to why the possibility of the HOFA was eventually reached due to financial situations, but for him, they are not enough—certainly not in the current Rijkswet HOFA law, nor is it sufficient to hand over the autonomy of the Country of Aruba for money.
Aruba’s autonomy is a right that our ancestors stood and fought for, also proving that this was the best decision Aruba could have made to achieve its status aparte. One could also see how older people can speak and feel about what Aruba was like before 1986, the situations Aruba had to go through within the constellation of the Netherlands Antilles with Curaçao and the other islands under it, as well as the heavy frustration with the Netherlands. Aruba wanted to become master of its own house and became master of its own house in the form of a status aparte, and one could see the vast difference in the progress Aruba embarked upon.
According to Mike de Meza, you can see that the decisions made were made by Arubans and not by the Netherlands or others, but it was Arubans who brought Aruba to where we are today.