Last night we told you that the Belize Peace Movement is going back to court to get the Elections and Boundaries to do a proper job of re-divisioning Belize's 31 constituencies.
That's the group which got the Supreme. Court to issue a consent order forcing Elections and Boundaries to come up with a re-divisioning proposal. They met the deadline, but the proposal was flawed - according to the UDP, the. PUPand the Peace movement.
The BPM has gone back to court, but the Minister of Political. And Constitutional Reform says the consent order was followed by Elections and Boundaries, but the data was defective:
Henry Charles Usher. Area Rep., Fort George
"Well, I believe what they're saying is that they want to revisit the consent order for claim 55 of 2019. That was a claim that they were bringing in place where a consent order was agreed to and a report had to be submitted to them to the National Assembly by July 17."
"Of course, that report was prepared on time. They got a copy of that report. So as far as I know, the consent order was adhered to. Of course, they have a dispute and disputes go to court. What I can see in regards to that particular report, and I've said this before to the media, is that we believe that it was unfair to expect the Election and Boundaries Commission to come out with a proper informed report when it didn't have all of the information needed."
"Particularly, the census, section 90 of the Constitution says very clearly that they are supposed to be considering the distribution of the population in the country. It does not say the electoral population as far as the Constitution that I have. It says the population of the country. So in order to consider the population of the country, they need a proper updated census. What they were working on is a census from 2010 and then population projections from 2010 using a growth rate that we don't know if it was accurate or not. We won't know that until the census comes out. But also, the census shows population trends. Where are people moving to? Rural areas, urban areas? Which urban areas? The types of buildings that are being built in these areas."
"We see a change in Belize City where we see more apartments being built rather than single dwelling homes. And all of that information would be included in that census and certainly would be able to properly inform the Election and Boundaries Commission when they're doing that report."
"The July 17th date was a date set by the court. We had hoped that it would have been a date when the census would have been completed already. But now that the census is being completed, hopefully sometime soon, we believe that a proper report can then be done."
Reporter
"So does this then kick the redistricting exercise down the road and it won't be in time for the 2025 election."
Henry Charles Usher. Area Rep., Fort George
"Not necessarily, I believe that the commission has the opportunity now, once the census is complete, to look at the census, to look at the areas and the constitution where they do have authority to act and come up with a report."
"I believe that the consent order from Claim 55 was adhered to. The report was submitted. Now, was it a properly informed report? That's something that has to be determined and I think it's better to do it right than to rush this process."
"It's absolutely important to make sure that the constitution is always adhered to when it comes to the electoral divisions and the distribution of the voters in those divisions."
