And while no change is expected in that outcome, will the demographic of cover change anytime soon?
On election day, our teams noted that despite the large number of adults and elders being trafficked in and out of the voting room, there were very few "young" first time voters between 18 and 29 showing up. Why is that? We asked the prime minister today what he thought about the low voter turnout for the younger generation:
Prime Minister, John Briceno
"Let me put it this way, that has always been the case all the time because young people in many instances are not thinking about a mortgage. They are not thinking about what the government is doing. They are concentrated on schoolwork, their social life, or concentrating on trying to get settled in their work, and that has been not only Belize but all over the world. it takes time for young people to really start to get engaged. Even my sons who live in a political family they go to vote. Yes, they support the PUP Of course they support me. But they would not be keen discussing what the government is doing. If there is something then there would say hey dad is this true? That is normal. When you see the numbers start to go up once you hit 30 years and above you see that people start to become more concerned about the government why? Because they know her families and they need to make sure where their children go to school. They need to make sure that there is a good hospital so that they can get scholarships that they can get a decent job. They want to see that the government is not wasting their money And they are not increasing taxes. These are the things that happen as we become an adult and that is normal everywhere. I think Orange Walk town had probably one of the highest, but almost 64% people turn out. But the point is that our people came out to vote. It is the opposition where supporters are disheartened and they do not like what they are seeing within their party so they chose not to come out so if they don't want to come out that there is a problem that is not my problem. My challenge is to ensure that our people come out to vote and our people came out in record numbers to support the peoples united government."
