Municipal Elections were held six weeks ago, and general elections are - currently - set for late 2025 - and yet the Redivisioning Report which came to light last July still hasn't made it to the House of Representatives. As we reported, the Belize Peace Movement - who are the claimants in the Supreme Court Redistricting case - rejected the proposal. But the process has been stalled because it is at the parliamentary level, and the status quo politicians seem to be delaying it as long as they can.
So today the Belize Peace Movement held a press conference to apply some pressure. They reiterated the reason for not accepting the proposal and expressed their concerns about the stall in the process.
Bobby Lopez, Belize Peace Movement
"As you all know, almost a year ago, the proposal were laid before the National Assembly and immediately, of course you the media caught onto it, the response from most including the prime minister is that they were not in agreement with international norms, the highest deviation was San Pedro, Belize Rural North with 35% above the median of 6,107 at the time. So having heard all of these objections to the proposal, it still has not been looked at, debated, and sent back to the Elections and Boundaries Commission and we see that as a disrespect to you all, the voters of this country and certainly to the judiciary who mandated and told the government and the Elections and Boundaries Commission to lay those proposals before July of 2023 to the government."
Paul Morgan, Belize Peace Movement
"Here's the problem. The Elections and Boundaries, did their exercise, we went into the Consent Order, and they said that they would dutifully put proposals to the National Assembly that will be consistent with the near equal standard, and of course, what do we expect? Legitimately we expect it would
be near 20% or below, we had arguments and discussions among ourselves if they go 15% it will be fine. The Elections and Boundaries presented us with a 35% deviation, far from what we expected so we dutifully and rightfully went to the court in an application to say, listen, this is not right, we want the court to enforce our rights from the concept of legitimate expectations. And this is important, because if the Elections and Boundaries is afforded lee way to pick any number they want, what will stop them next year from doing re-divisioning and they will pick 50% next year or 40%."
But the BPM are not backing down. They tried to stop the 2020 election with an injunction but the courts weren't on their side. Now, due to an error, they were alarmed that the case would have been struck out. While that has been resolved, Leslie emphasized that this process has not been without its tribulations.
Bobby Lopez, Belize Peace Movement
"I just want to make reference to 2020 before the election. Our case at that time had an injunction to stop the election from taking place because we felt and we know up to this day that it would have been an unconstitutional election. You all will recall that we went into a fight, the PUP brought their lawyers, Courtenay and Coye and others, the UDP had their lawyers and at the end of the day, they convinced the judge that they had spent millions on campaign and these ordinary citizens could not stop this election and in particular one thing keeps in my mind that one attorney said, why did you all take so long? Well we had already been in court over a year. okay, I have a question for this administration. Why have you all take so long to do the redistricting?"
"We will not allow them to do it to us twice. So when we heard and it was just cleared up this morning as the attorney said, I think he spoke about it. We had an email saying that they were striking out our case again, and this would've been strike three because you all will recall those of you who were at the first hearing of this case in 2019 before judge Benjamin. The attorneys on the UDP administration then, when they opened up the case, they were asking the judge, this is a frivolous case, and we don't it needs to be heard and what have you and judge Benjamin gave them a good scolding, thank God for him, and he said, no I'm going to listen to this case, this case has validity. And it still has even more so now five years later we're completing."
