New bill says voters can get rid of area reps who aren’t performing
dean barrow
At the House meeting on Friday, Prime Minister Dean Barrow introduced a bill that most elected officials probably don’t want you to know about because it gives you measurable power over that politician. The bill provides for the recall of the divisional representative before the completion of his term in office. In other words you can remove your elected area representative if you feel he isn’t doing the job. According to the PM, the process starts after thirty percent of the registered voters in the constituent signs a petition for the representative’s removal.
Prime Minister Dean Barrow
“No petition for recall can be presented before the expiry of eighteen months. With respect to this particular government, eighteen months have already relapsed and so the field is wide open for constituents who feel that their representatives are not performing to take advantage of this legislation. The governor general will forward the petition to the Chief Elections Officer to verify the signatures and for the certification that at least thirty percent of the registered voters in that division have in fact appended their signatures to the petition. Once it is confirmed that there is a petition duly signed by the requisite number of electors, the governor general will issue a writ of recall referendum within fifteen days and the returning officer concerned shall hold the referendum in accordance with the referendum and act the directions of the Elections and Boundaries Commission. Now Mr. Speaker, once the referendum is held, there is a requirement for sixty-five percent of the registered electors in the division to participate in the referendum. Once that threshold is met, a simple majority of the votes cast by the sixty-five percent, saying that the representative is to be recalled, will do the trick. Thereafter there has to be a by-election and that particular representative can’t participate in the by-election.”
Barrow said he believes this bill will strengthen democratic process
Perfect, we need to start right away in Griga and hopefully we’ll get it done before the coming election.
I don’t believe it!!!! He Opened the Box………. PEOPLE GET ORGANIZED!!!!!!!! we have work to do.
who says the Pm is not taking measures.
if you were not wake for any of the Pm speech are you, now/
when you vote for an area REP in belize it is becuse he promised you something before the election. you voted based on trust. When he fail to deliver his promised he should be voted out, and this should give him enough time to edcated himself about the rules of “trust” .
don’t foget people that these area rep also works for the government, and the government rules.
That is good, now it’s time to do that, like Montero, he no doing one r@$$ fu Santa Elena, You should see the nice house he built for his son, check behind Juan Chuck store and you’ll see.
While all the streets in are so messed up, what a disgrace of a Minister.
And Salva, just getting pay for Areas Rep and doing nothing as well.
Them ya Reps have to go.
how about lets vote on getting rid of this pm who is impotent on crime economy education tourism giving away the country to the us since in power every aspect of belize have gone downhill worst in history of belize lets vote him out put him on a plane to miami.
30% is WAY too high. This is nothing but a PR move.
Barrow cannot —-kup belize anymore than it is today, the way the cock-eyed S musa left it, i don’t believe that any of belize PM is better than the other, I prefer a woman to run belize, until then we have to deal with the Two PM of belize.
Now we are making progress,finally a law that make a whole lot of sense.It’s only right,that we hold the flame to our politician’s a**es,they were put there to serve and perform for the people of belize.
May be we should start with the wrong hon PM Barrow.
Good job Mr. PM. It’s time to get rid of all the are reps. from Corozal. They are all one bunch of idiots. Nemencio Acosta and Pablo Marin in particular deserve to be booted out. Most people have been crying for help but to no avail. Yeah, you can find them in bars or wasting government time to run their personal errands but they are never there for the people. I really hope this makes these area reps.buckle up.
i applaud the PM for this initiative…this legislation is for the general Belizeans…this has nothing to do with political party…Mr. PM you should keep up with other initiative…please open a website where WE Belizeans can provide you with other ideas, and intiatives…long live Belize
ok so this is a good idea and it is really true about Montero and Salva while one all he does is drinking at bars the other is only filling his pockets as much as he can.
Montero especially needs to go. And hey what about the Mayors can they also be taken out.
We need dah commercial from “yellow-man”; ” dis yah crowd haf fi go”. Mrs. Yolanda Schakron you ready fi run fi we area….??? u done know… dah north front street haf fi go too…
people people wake up you cant kill a snake by cutting off the tail it will grow right back so what is it you have to do is you have to cut off the head only so will anything change.
The Deputy PM or our area rep is not doing a thing for the greater masses. If you call giving permission to flunkies to bring in contraband thru the Santa Elena border in Corozal after normal working hours. He only benefit to those who’s kissing is @ss.
Pls the PM is always trying to introduce things that he fully well knows wont be carried out. If that is the case start replacing all of them because from they were voted in we haven’t seen their faces at our houses asking what they can do to help us as they were before when they wanted our votes. Wasn’t this the same man that introduced operation jaguar that lasted what whole of 2 weeks just because his good friend got shot!!! What happened to the hundreds that died because of gun violence on the streets and I am yet to see the PM address the Belizean people about that, I would like for this to be true but knowin this government they tell the people what they want to hear and that’s it! I personally would like to start with the PM and work my way down.
I applaud Mr. Prime Minister on this bill, this bill would have been stronger if it had a side note for impeachment of any prime minister deamed guilty of misapropriation of funds while in office, this would be useful in order to avoid what happened in Honduras where the military had to get involved in getting rid of a communist dictator wannabee. In this way we the voters could get rid of a wannabe dictator commie without the need of a military, so no nations will call it a coup when it is the citizens who get rid of the scumbag.
Good, very good. I do hope the Belizean people take advantage of this. I agree with Learsiman but this is not the first Marin that haven’t done anything this have been happening for the last 40years for most of the village in the North. Hopefully this will help change in the North.
YAY for DEMOCRACY!!! I am impressed, P.M. Barrow!!!
AND……..He may have signed his own walking papers!!!!!!! Now we’ll see real grass-roots politics… and hopefully a better Nation.
sound good to me. Minister not peroforming shouild be out
I DONT SEE ANYTHING PARTICULARY GOOD OR DECENT IN BARROW. BUT I MUST ADMIT THIS BILL APPEARS TO BE HEADING IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION ON US BEING ABLE TO HOLD OUR POLITICAL LEADERS ACCOUNTABLE
Hope this will be appied to the ministers or whoever is in charge of national security or the Police.—LOL—- Let see!
Guess somebody is not performing or “he is not doing his job” why CRIME is so rampant.
Let us use this new law people. I hope that when our area representatives refuse to listen to the will of the people on the issues of offshore exploration we can remove each and everyone. this should mean power tot he people – let us learn what it is, its limitation and make full use and seek amendments is needs be.
Excellent start Mr Dean Barrow,.Prime Minister of Belize. Hopefully this will prevent making a politician a profession but a servant of the people as was meant to be.Empowering Belizeans!!
It a very good first step towards making sure people are held accountable for promises made in election cycle.
WELL….LET ME PUT IN MY TWO CENTS..BRING IN YELLOW MAN COMMERCIAL…RAMON WITZ HAFU GO…HE DOING NOTHING FOR CAYO SOUTH..HE WAS A WASTE OF TIME. GIVING HIM MY VOTE WAS THE WORST DECISION I HAVE EVER MADE IN MY ENTIRE LIFE. IT’S A PITY I AM NOT IN BELIZE AT THIS TIME, BECAUSE I WOULD BE THE FIRST ONE TO CARRY OUT THE OPERATIONS IN GETTING THE VOTERS SIGNATURE. AND I HOPE HE READ THIS TOO, I CAN TELL HIM TO HIS FACE…I WANT HIM OUT OF OFFICE. YOU PROMISED US THE WORLD AND GOT NADA IN THE END. I HOPE YOU BE THE FIRST TO GO. ROARING CREEK, CAMALOTE, TEAKETTLE PEOPLE NO HAPPY WITH YOU AT ALL, AND IT DOESN’T STOP THERE, THE LIST GOES ON, AND ON, AND ON, AND YOU KNOW IT.
ORGANIZE, ORGANIZE……………Organize from the GRASS-ROOTS, and we can BUILD A BETTER NATION. IT’S UP 2 US……. WE THE PEOPLE!!!!!!!!! Let’s get busy………..
The Fed policymakers are never going to say we’re headed for recession or worse. It would become a self-fulfilling prophesy. Their statements will always be on the rose-colored side and they will react too slowly to avoid conveying panic.
Yeah start from National Security down to Cayo South get Ramon out!