The Bottom, Saba – The polling station on Saba opened today. Just over 900 can vote for the House of Representatives today, tomorrow and Wednesday.

Island Governor Jonathan Johnson visited the polling station at the fire station in The Bottom this morning. There, he spoke to a small group of students from Saba Comprehensive School, the only high school on the island.

The authority explained how the voting process works, what the difference is with the elections to the island council and why these elections are important, even though the House of Representatives is far away. The students will observe the elections over the next three days as part of the social studies course. The second polling station at the Eugenius Johnson Center in Windwardside opens on Wednesday.

“It’s good that the students can see for their own eyes it’s going to be in the polling station,” Johnson said. The students are happy with this opportunity to experience the process at the polling station up close. Student Vernisha Robinson: “For us, it’s an eye opener to see how elections work. The government, here and in the Netherlands, is part of our social studies lessons. It is also interesting to see how the Dutch elections differ from the local elections”.

In line with the Unicef project of the end of 2020 and children’s rights week, the local supervisor, Gerald Simmons-de Jong, asked the students if they wanted to attend the Dutch parliamentary elections.

As part of the Unicef project, a number of the students participated in the online inter-island debate and lobby session with Memper of Parliament Stieneke van der Graaf (ChristenUnie) and State Secretary Raymond Knops (CDA) in December last year. The subject of the Unicef project was to strengthen the voice of young people in the Caribbean Netherlands.

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