Raymond Helligar leaves Louis Mussington and joins Jeanne Vanterpool
On February 10, Louis Mussington unveiled the name of those standing by his side on the list of the Movement for Justice and Prosperity (MJP), among them Raymond Helligar. Three weeks later, the night before the lists were filed at the prefecture, his name was excluded from the list. According to the relevant party, he was "too old." He is 68.
"The leader of the MJP has now only one obsession, which has been the same for twenty years and is even more pronounced today: win, be president," noted Raymond Helligar, repeating three times "win, be president" to members of the media that he summoned late Friday morning. "And for him [Editor’s Note: Louis Mussington] to guarantee a win, a specialist advised him in secret to form a younger list. But he confused the idea of a younger list with firing the old, and the only old man that he found... who do you think that is?" he continued, without naming the name of the specialist involved. And wondered: "Since when is ageing ugly? Since when does ageing take you away from serenity, from a sense of responsibility, a sense of duty, a sense of respect for others?" To prove otherwise, he cited as an example the experience of Lucette Michaud-Chevry: "If the maturity, longevity and experience of Ms Lucette Michaud-Chevry - the current President of the urban community of Basse-Terre - are a mark of success for Guadeloupe, why wouldn't they be for the construction and success of Saint-Martin as well?"
A co-founder of the MJP, he also asked if the party has "become just like those companies with no soul and no heart, who do not like the old." "I saw that the movement as it exists is no longer the tool for transforming Saint-Martin society that I was hoping for," said Raymond Helligar, whose ambition is to "fight an order established by a small group, which increases inequality and weakens and divides Saint-Martin society a little more every day."
Shortly after he was excluded from the list of the MJP and a few hours from the filing deadline for lists in the prefecture, Raymond Helligar has found comfort from Jeanne Vanterpool, the leader of New Direction. "I decided to go and build the Saint-Martin that we want and participate as much as I can in preparing a true and real alternative to the political path that the MJP leader has decided to take," he says. And added about Jeanne Vanterpool: "She was politically savvy in naming her list New Direction and not New Generation."
Facing reporters, Raymond Helligar also confessed a second, more political, reason for his departure from the MJP list. Louis Mussington would not have given him an "electable place," meaning that he had not placed him in the top ten of the list. But Helligar wants to "act" and be elected. His position on the New Direction list, however, has not been disclosed. It should be revealed on Saturday, March 4 at the official presentation of the list by Jeanne Vanterpool.
