The U.D.P. Wants Bernard Wagner Disqualified from the Municipal Race!

Bernard Wagner

The United Democratic Party is heading to court to get P.U.P.’s Mayoral candidate Bernard Wagner disqualified from the 2021 municipal race.  The U.D.P., through its Chairman Michael Peyrefitte, launched a Supreme Court application which will be heard before the court on Monday afternoon.  The contention is that Wagner doesn’t live in Belize City and according to the U.D.P., there is a piece of legislation that was amended which can see Wagner disqualified. Here’s more from Peyrefitte.

Michael Peyrefitte

Michael Peyrefitte, Chairman, U.D.P.

“There was a discussion about it at the time of the nomination of his candidacy.  I am told that the Chief Elections Officer got the advice of the current Attorney General’s ministry that the candidates for Belize City only necessarily had to have ordinarily been residing in Belize country for the past year.  The website has the current 2003 legislation on the internet but when I did some research I was hoping that during this time the Elections and Boundaries Commission would realize that they were mistaken in that advice because I was sure there was an amendment. The amendment was gazetted the thirty-first of December 2008 that clearly made the change and said that you have to be in Belize City. In terms of the filing and timing of filing it there is no time limit. First of all, we had to see if he will be nominated so the question is why did we wait from nomination day to now. We have not been waiting – we have been preparing and there is nothing to say that a judge is prevented from disqualifying a candidate up to five minutes before polls open – there is no time limit. But we believe we have a very strong case. We believe we are on all fours with the case but that is a matter for the courts. On Monday they will decide and we believe that whatever the decision the court comes with we will have to accept and proceed accordingly. But we would respectfully disagree. I don’t want to preempt any court but we believe respectfully the case is clear. Bernard Wagner doesn’t live in Belize City. He has not ordinarily resided anywhere but Los Lagos for the last year or two, couple years. So, clearly within the confines of the Belize City Council Act he is simply not qualified to run as a city councilor or a mayor of Belize City.”