Since the beginning of the news week, we've been telling you about the significant development in the campaign from the churches to trigger a national referendum on the legalization of marijuana in Belize.
After 60 long days of counting and reconciliation, the Chief Elections Officer and her team of public officers have verified that the churches successfully met the legal requirement of at least 10% of the registered voters who signed on to the referendum petition. The Churches confidently asserted that they did not doubt that the nearly 20,000 Belizeans who signed on to the petition around the Easter Holiday were more than enough to comply with the rules of the Referendum Act.
The Governor-General has received a full written report from the Chief Elections Officer, and within the next 30 days, she is expected to issue a Writ of Referendum. That then starts the 30-day count down within which the referendum must occur.
This afternoon, though, Plus TV's Pastor Louis Wade, the selected spokesperson of the church, granted a virtual press conference in which he expressed gratitude for the support from the Belizean public, especially those petitioners who agreed to submit their names to meet that minimum 10% threshold:
Pastor Louis Wade - Spokesperson, Churches
"We are very thankful and grateful to the citizens of Belize who are now seeing that there is power in the people to have government listen. The 20,000 petitions, as we have said before, were properly screened and vetted, legitimately obtained according to law. And now, we see that the Elections and Boundaries Office has validated that 10% of the electorate has indeed triggered a referendum on the marijuana issue. The church wishes to thank all those who helped to gather the signatures, as well as those who signed it. And then, of course, the process had to go to the elections and boundaries department, where many public servants poured over the signatures for countless hours. They also worked very hard to ensure that the democratic process has been protected. The [chief] elections officer has already certified the results and sent that information to the governor-general. As far as we know, the governor-general, in her wisdom in due time, will issue the writ of referendum, from which the 30 days will commence. We are seeing history. We are glad to be a part of this history, and we believe that it is positive history because it is the first time that any group of people has been able to work together to trigger a referendum. This is a good time. This is not the church forcing its opinion on the masses. This is the church leading and the nation saying, yes, we want a democratic voice in the process. And I've said it before and I say it again. There are many other issues that need to be put before the people of Belize in referenda. We should not be afraid of this process because it is the purest form of hearing the voice of the people on any issue."
And if the pro-marijuana supporters thought that the Churches only wanted a survey through political opinion, this afternoon, Pastor Louis Wade made it clear that they will be campaigning hard for a "no" vote whenever the referendum is held. He said that the church "has skin in the game."
Pastor Louis Wade - Spokesperson, Churches
"We have skin in the game. Poverty is close to our hearts because we meet with people on a weekly basis. We know what they're going through. Remember that the church decided to step in because the government was about to legalize marijuana without consulting the people or without even putting surveys. I think the last drug survey was conducted in 2016, which is the year before decriminalization. So the government has no official statistics on the effect that decriminalization or thoughts about legalization have had upon society. The church has skin in the game. We are the ones that the people come to without a political spin. And so, we intend to convince the nation. We intend to be proactive in this process. Now, maybe if the government were the ones that had initiated the referendum, as we were asking them to do, then probably we would have just waited for the pulse of the people. But know that the church has been forced to hit the streets and that 20,000 people have said, we want a referendum. They are looking to the church to provide leadership. And we have absolutely no problem providing that leadership, not only for the referendum, but the results of the referendum, and the effect that that is going to have on the society, up to election time and beyond election time. The church is going to be active in the fight against drugs."
