Electoral boundaries to be redrawn
She’s only been on the job for three months but Chief Elections Officer Myrtle Palacio has undertaken a task which will shape the political landscape for years to come: the redistricting of the nation’s twenty-nine electoral constituencies. This morning Myrtle Palacio sat down with News Five’s Stewart Krohn to explain just what her job does — and does not — undertake to do.
Myrtle Palacio, Chief Elections Officer
“This is a necessary exercise in our kind of electoral system that needs to be done from time to time to address these inequalities. I suggested to the Commission because I am responsible to the Commission to make suggestions. We’ve been getting requests from the public, from politicians regarding inequality that came up even before and after elections. I am aware that the Commission is responsible for this and I am responsible to the Commission. This was a unanimous decision by the Commission; there was not one dissenting vote.”
Q: “Looking at the Constitution it appears that the constitutional suggestion about how equal in population the constituencies must be is fairly loose. It says, “each electoral division shall have as nearly as may be an equal number of persons eligible to vote.” In other words the Constitution is saying they could be nearly equal. You’re the person who has to carry out the exercise, how are you going to interpret out that nearly equal provision?”
Myrtle Palacio
“I won’t be able to answer that until I get into the field. That is the whole idea of the comprehensive exercise. We’re not looking at dividing ninety-eight thousand electors into twenty-nine divisions. There are other factors to take a look at.”
Q: “If you look at the number from the last registration process it becomes painfully obvious that the voters in the city are over represented and the people outside of Belize City in rural areas are under represented in terms of the ratio of population to representative. Is it part of your agenda that the number of seats in Belize City could be reduced and the number of seats outside of Belize City could be increased?”
Myrtle Palacio
“I wouldn’t want to hazard a guess at this time. As I have said earlier I have not started the consultation; we have not started the exercise. This is something we’re going to look into. I wouldn’t want to hazard any guess.”
Q: “But constitutionally there is no bar to that?”
Myrtle Palacio
“No.”
Q: “In other words if you wanted to amalgamate the Pickstock and Fort George divisions or two adjoining city divisions and make them into one and give another seat in Cayo for example, which would need it, that could be done if the Commission so decided?”
Myrtle Palacio
“If the Commission so decided and see that that is a necessity and it fits within the criteria then that’s one proposal that would go to the National Assembly.”
Q: “The exercise that you’re involved in obviously has political implications. The term “gerrymander” borrowed from a US political system comes to mind. While it’s obvious that one party can’t gerrymander every district to make itself win in each one, one can envision a situation in a few close constituencies a boundary movement one way or the other could put a certain representative in a commanding position. How as the one who has to implement this process, how do you relate to the political considerations?”
Myrtle Palacio
“Let me take you back into history. In 1984 new divisions were carved. We went from eighteen to twenty eight. Bounty changes have taken place, you know. We went from five to nine to eighteen in 1979 to twenty-eight in ’84 and to one more in 1993. So this is not anything new, except what has been happening, what we know of redistricting is addition of seats. That’s what it has been. That was the case in ’79; that was also the case in 1984, it enlarged ten.
I am quite sure that politicians should have learned from hindsight that really whatever the media is calling gerrymandering has not worked in the favor of any of the political parties in power so really it doesn’t work for Belize.”
The members of the Elections and Boundaries Commission include Chairman Gadsby Ramos, Norman Moore and Domingo Perez who are appointed by government and Opposition appointees Audrey Wallace and Alberto August. Palacio added that voters will not have to reregister as part of the exercise. If, because of boundary changes, you are moved from one constituency to another you will still use your same card but will vote at a new polling station which will already have your name on the new list. At present the largest constituency, Cayo South, has three and a half times more voters than the smallest, Pickstock.
