Why Now, Asks Foreign Minister?

Wilfred Elrington

Twenty-five years after the passage of the controversial law, the Senate is going to be asked to consider the amendment at its next sitting. But the Government side appears to be caught off guard by the announcement. Foreign Affairs Minister Wilfred Elrington spoke to us in Belmopan today about the now-Opposition efforts to get the Act amended and questioned why it is that the issue is being brought up at this particular time.

Wilfred Elrington, Minister of Foreign Affairs

“I found it strange that during the entire time the People’s United Party was in Government that they never sought to repeal it, although I was later made to understand that they had been given some advice which suggested that it may have been prudent for them to do that; nonetheless, they had never done it. It hasn’t come up as a topic for discussion as yet in our Cabinet, and so I don’t know what our present Government would do if it were to come up. But I do know that elements in the People’s United Party want to seek to resurrect it for repeal. What I don’t understand is why is it that when they were in office this initiative was not taken, because they need not have gone through the Senate. They were in office from 1998 to 2008 and no move was made to repeal it; so I find it strange that they would want to do that now.”