Viewers will remember that only 2 days before the March 3rd, Municipal Elections of this year, the Opposition, United Democratic Party, had decided to challenge the mayoral candidacy of PUP's Bernard Wagner.
They were trying to get him disqualified from the election because they were convinced he was violating the Belize City Council Act, which says quote, "No person shall be eligible for election as a member of the Council... who... has not ordinarily resided in Belize City for at least one year immediately preceding the date of the election..." End quote.
He's been living in Los Lagos, which is outside of City limits, and you'll remember that the litigants, UDP's Michael Peyrefitte and another by the name of Melborne Wade Jr., tried to convince Justice Sonya Young to hear their election petition on this supposed violation.
The problem is that from the judge's perspective, the law does not allow for election petitions to take place before the election being challenged has occurred. So, the litigants, realizing that they wouldn't be allowed to make a pre-emptive strike, decided to stand down their case until today's date, 6 weeks after the election.
You'll remember the historic landslide victory that the ruling PUP was able to get at the local government polls. Well, it appears that the litigants have decided to drop their petition against the newly re-elected mayor, Bernard Wagner.
This afternoon, Hector Guerra, one of the attorneys representing Wagner, granted us a teleconference interview to explain that the petitioners had a legal misstep in trying to discontinue their petition. Here's what he had to say about what happened when their attorney announced to the court that they no longer want to proceed with their case:
We'll tell you about the subsequent hearing when the petitioners come back to the court with the correct legal steps to end this case.
