~Outgoing senator says she chose “competence and experience” in the second round and will hand over her Senate files to her successor.~
SAINT-MARTIN:--- Outgoing Senator Annick Pétrus has confirmed that she voted for Daniel Gibbs in the second round of Sunday’s senatorial election, after the territorial majority declined to support her bid for a second term.
In a statement issued from Marigot on September 27, Pétrus said she accepted Saint-Martin’s electors' choice. She said the majority of the Territorial Council, of which she remains a member, had decided against renewing its confidence in the outgoing senator from its own ranks. That decision, she said, would warrant analysis in due course.
Pétrus received three votes in the first round and did not stand in the second. Gibbs went on to defeat Valérie Damaseau, the candidate backed by Territorial Council President Louis Mussington, by 13 votes to 11, with one abstention.
Explaining her second-round choice, Pétrus said she had voted for Gibbs because she considered him capable of defending Saint-Martin’s interests effectively in the Senate from the outset. She congratulated him on his election and wished him success in the mandate.
Pétrus thanked the electors who supported her, her substitute Alexandre Choisy, and those who worked on her campaign. Reflecting on her six years in the Senate, she pointed to her work on health and the Louis-Constant Fleming Hospital, education, the high cost of living, security, and Saint-Martin’s economic, social and institutional challenges.
She said she had sought to ensure that the territory’s difficulties and ambitions were heard in Parliament. In the coming weeks, she intends to hand over the files and Senate work she has pursued as fully as possible.
Pétrus closed her statement by saying that, although her Senate term is ending, her commitment to Saint-Martin remains.
