Independents protest unequal constituencies
It’s a problem that grows a little worse with each election, yet neither political party seems to have the slightest inclination to do anything about it. That is the growing numerical inequality between the nation’s twenty-nine electoral constituencies. Despite a constitutional mandate that “each electoral division shall have as nearly as may be an equal number of persons eligible to vote”, the demographic changes in Belize have produced a situation where the largest constituency, Cayo South, has more than four times as many registered voters as the smallest, Pickstock. Today, the movement of independent candidates called We the People took aim at both traditional parties and their failure to correct this imbalance. While their action of asking the Governor General to deny tomorrow’s request by the Prime Minister to dissolve the National Assembly, will certainly fall on deaf ears, the point that has been raised is a telling indictment of both P.U.P. and U.D.P. Today, We the People National Coordinator, Francis Gegg, placed the issue in the context of the movement’s campaign.
Francis Gegg, National Coordinator, We the People
“It’s all part of what we consider political reform. We believe that the current government serving is in actual fact an unconstitutionally elected government because the election process did not comply with the mandates of the constitution, which is the supreme law of the land.”
Stewart Krohn
“Then presumably neither did the previous government and the one previous to that, and the one previous to that.”
Francis Gegg
“This law came into force in 1988, which means that 1989, ’93, ’98 governments, as far as we are concerned, were unconstitutional, as is this government, as far as we are concerned unconstitutional.”
Stewart Krohn
“We the People have been around for a good number of years now, but you said it only now just came to light.”
Francis Gegg
“Well we have been examining many different things, we’ve gone past the advocacy for an elected Senate. For example, we’ve been looking at a smaller Cabinet, which we believe is another way we need to look at checking the power out of Cabinet, keeping the power in the legislative branch. So we’ve been looking at many things, and this one, one of our thinkers in our group just happened upon this, brought it to our attention and we thought that we needed to bring this to the nation and make them conscious of the fact that we have a very unfair electoral process in place right now.
Elections and Boundaries know that they should be adjusting the divisions in a more fair and equitable manner and just haven’t done it. So we’re seeking to ask the Governor General to require the Elections and Boundaries to abide by the highest law of the land, which is the constitution, which says that the electoral divisions must be as equal as possible, and that is so far away from the mandates and the spirit of the constitution.”
Stewart Krohn
“Do you really expect that the Governor General is gonna read your letter and then say, you know what, We the People is right, I guess I will not dissolve the legislature after all?”
Francis Gegg
“Well, it’s in his hands, so we’ll have to wait and see what he does. We have other things plan, one of which is a constitutional redress against the Governor General if he does not accede to our requests.”
The reason the politically appointed Elections and Boundaries Commission can get away with ignoring the constitution lies in the particular wording of the document. Section ninety states that “The Elections and Boundaries Commission shall, after considering the distribution of the population throughout Belize, make proposals from time to time for dividing Belize into electoral divisions…”. The operative words here are “from time to time”. Those times, apparently, are few and far between.
