Is Micah Goodin Sour Grapes After Losing District Youth Council Elections?

Three weeks ago, the Department of Youth Services had its Youth Council Elections. Micah Goodin and Stafin Duncan vied for the top spot in the Belize District; the race ended in a tie. On March tenth, a bye-election was held and Duncan came out on top. The results stirred controversy because it looked like party politics straight down the line.  Today Goodin, with the support from the Belize Youth Movement, the youth arm of the People’s Untied Party, held a briefing with the media in front of the Office of the DYS on Regent Street. Goodin is charging that there is evidence of corruption in the elections.

Micah Goodin, Former Candidate, Youth Council, Belize District

“We provided these evidence to the Department of Youth Services and we asked them to participate in an investigation…to investigate the matter and not to take our word as gospel, but to investigate the matter on their own behalf. But they have not made any moves at investigating what we have brought to their attention.”

Reporter

“Now, share some of the specific example of wrongdoing.”

Micah Goodin

Micah Goodin

“Well first of all, we live in a constitutional democracy and elections are supposed to be free and fair. The laws of Belize state that on the Election Day, any candidate can give no more than twenty bucks to those participating in elections. And so today we have evidence in cases where students were given one hundred bucks each after participating in elections and we also have documented evidence whereby students were dragged out of their classes without proper authorization from the school and forced to come and participate in the elections. We wrote to them almost three weeks now and we are still waiting for a response. And we have gotten none so far and so we believe that we needed to take action and we needed to expose this and bring this to the light of the public and so that is what we are doing today.”

Reporter

“I think I saw an email here they said that they saw your communication and was supposed to have a meeting.”

Micah Goodin

“Yes they confirmed receipt of the information, they were supposed to have a meeting with the oversight committee and I believe a decision was to be made on the documents that we surrendered, but to date nothing has happened and we are still waiting.”