PUP Cayo West Representative Jorge Milin Espat had a meeting with voters in Melchor at the at the Catholic Parish Hall, in that Guatemalan border town last week - even distributing school bags to their children and tonight he says he has nothing to say sorry about. He was accompanied by PUP personality, and supervisor of all fieldwork for the redistricting exercise, Collet Montejo.
Espat told us they are registered Belizean voters - who live in Guatemala. He agrees that he did distribute school bags but says that he did so - again - because they are registered voters.
He denies discussing the immigration amnesty with them - and stresses that he would not need to do so because they are Belizean. Espat said that these are like registered Belizean voters who live in any part of the world - whether it be Mexico or the USA - and he was having a session with them.
Of course that is not exactly accurate since there's this little thing called the Guatemalan claim on Belize's territory - and Section 29 of the Constitution of Belize states that "no person shall be granted Belizean nationality if that person is from a country that does not recognize Belize's independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity, namely Guatemala."
That aside, the bigger political issue is that for years the PUP made a practice of criticizing the former Cayo West UDP Rep Erwin Contreras for bringing in voters from Melchor to win elections.
In this case, the voter meeting is of course brought into sharper focus because Espat himself - who was born in Guatemala - was not a registered voter at the last election - but still easily beat incumbent Erwin Contreras in what is considered a major upset.
