For most of last week, 7news has been closely following the mass naturalizations and registrations of immigrants - now newly minted Belizean Citizens - which had been occurring in Belmopan. We even showed you how one of the UDP Area Representatives was even paying for its facilitation. We have been hearing disapproving sighs in the background, but only the PUP has publicized its discontent for what it calls "instant naturalization" and "padding the voters' list".
Today, the media was invited to the Chateau Caribbean Hotel for a press conference chaired by the executive members of the two major independent political parties, Vision Inspired by the People and the People's National Party. These two political parties announced that they stand in solidarity to oppose the naturalizations. In fact, they are even taking it further by demanding that the Government enacts a Statutory Instrument of 1997 which allows for re-registration of voters - or cleaning of the voters' list. They are further demanding that the new Belizean Citizens are not to be allowed to vote because they are compromised by their compensation of citizenship. VIP and PNP have said that if Government ignores the request, they will then approach the OAS and other international governing bodies to oversee Belize's next general elections. Here's what VIP and PNP had to say:
Robert "Bobby" Lopez - Chairman, Vision Inspired by the People
"In 1997 the UDP administration of 93' to 98' enacted SI (statutory instrument) 11 of 1997 which calls for the re-registration and cleaning of the voters list. That was one year before elections were due in 1998."
"Here is an Act; here is a law that calls for re-registration to take place every ten years. It was postponed in 2007 by the former PUP administration, and the Act does call and give that ministerial discretion the power to postpone it if general elections are six months away."
"Now the elections have not been called and so technically the elections are still a year away and if we want to push it and say that the Prime Minister said that yes it will be in 2013; then it's still eleven months away at the max. We are saying that in order for the voter to go to polls confident that every constituency voters list has integrity it's clean; every person that is going to the polls to vote is an elector that is duly registered, has the proper qualifications and lives in the constituency at least two months."
"What has taken place in the last month we feel is immoral, unethical and probably some of it is illegal. So today we call for this. The public is enraged; we've talked to so many who are totally enraged about what has happened. It has cheapened our birthright. It gives value to being a Belizean, and we are calling that this exercise must take place so that voters can feel a little more relied and confident that when they go to the polls the voters list is as clean as possible. So this exercise can and must take place."
"We understand that municipal elections cannot be moved; that is by law March 7th. So we will have to go into the municipal elections with the voters list as is, but that does not mean that the Prime Minister cannot call now for the re-registration exercise to start immediately after March 7."
"If our government does not heed us, we are calling as a last resort for international observers and we are going to be sending this request to the OAS, Caricom, UN to come and observe our upcoming elections - if the general elections is called early without heeding the call of the public of the VIP, PNP, Independent candidates who are offering themselves for elected office, who want to see a better Belize. If the government does not heed our call for re-registration then we are calling for international observers."
Wil Maheia - Leader, People's National Party
"It is important for us to look at the voters' registration list and clean it up. It is important for us to go back to a year before the last general election when they should have called for a re-registration and cleaning of the voters list. So here we are in solidarity with the VIP and other independent candidates."
The VIP and PNP also announced that they disapprove of the SSB mortgage write-off due to its intended purpose being compromised.
