Shyne Says Share Up Port Loyola; Gilroy Usher Says “No Way!”

Shyne Barrow

This evening, Port Loyola Area Representative Gilroy Usher Senior issued a release regarding the ongoing redistricting exercise. While he vehemently opposes the reapportionment of his constituency, Usher says, “in fairness, the elimination of two divisions in the Belize District should begin with the smallest of the eight smallest divisions in the area, specifically Fort George, Mesopotamia, Queen Square, Albert, Collet, Freetown, Pickstock and Caribbean Shores which all have below the minimum of four thousand, six hundred voters each.” On the other hand, Opposition Leader Shyne Barrow says that Port Loyola should, in fact, be broken up to accommodate the expansion of smaller constituencies.

Shyne Barrow, Leader of the Opposition

“Port Loyola, not Collet, Port Loyola should be broken up and given to Albert and Collet and then Queen Square should go into Mesopotamia.  That is what the experts have advised that make sense, and Belize Rural South needs to be broken up.  Those are two constituencies according to the constitutional mean which is about forty-six hundred to fifty-five hundred, because there is a room of error there.  And that is not what they proposed.  Initially, they proposed to eliminate Collet, eliminate Queen Square, leave Belize Rural South with the exception of, taking Caye Caulker and St. George’s Caye to save Henry Charles, gut Albert and make that a part of Fort George.  Move Polling Station 13 from Mesopotamia which is contiguous to Collet all the way over to Albert that there is no connection in Polling Station 13 in Mesopotamia.  So these are the types of things that we have pushed back against and it’s very important for the Belizean people to be tuned because we don’t want them to interfere with the elections.  I believe that democracy must be upheld and it must be fair.  Let’s do what is practical, we’re not saying that no UDP constituency would be eliminated, we have accepted that, that according to the constitutional mandate that Belize District has to reduce.  So we accept that you would have three constituencies, but it should be two PUP constituencies and one UDP, not for political reasons but for what makes sense.”