Will Re-districting Impact Landlocked Constituencies?

Josephine Tamai

The ongoing re-registration precedes a re-districting exercise which is scheduled to take place prior to the next general elections.  In two Belize City constituencies, namely: Queen Square and Fort George, the numbers have been particularly low.  The outcome in those two divisions begs the question of whether or not the voter population will also be impacted re-districting.

Josephine Tamai, Chief Elections Officer

“One of the purposes of doing the re-registration definitely will lead to the whole issue of re-districting later down the road.  So again, the numbers will be looked at because you all know that re-districting is something on the agenda that the commission is definitely looking at.  So there is a possibility that changes may be made based on the figures that we have.”

Francisco Zuniga

Francisco Zuniga, Special Assistant, Elections & Boundaries Department

“If I may also add, the geographical layout of those two divisions are not subjected for expansion, unlike other areas like Lake Independence, Port Loyola.  Those are only compacted areas where people can only move out or move in, but they do not necessarily subjected to grow, like other electoral divisions.”

Doug Singh

Doug Singh, Chairman, Elections & Boundaries Commission

“And it might actually be that in those two divisions and other similar divisions it might have been that a lot of people who were registered there who did not live in there and this exercise is actually cleaning that process up.”