Commonwealth Experts release Belize election report
The report of the Commonwealth Expert Team that observed our recent general election is out. By and large they gave the process a clean bill of health, albeit with some helpful recommendations for the future. What follows is the verbatim summary of the team’s conclusions.
“Having observed the 2008 General Election, the Team has observed that Belize enjoys a mature democracy and a well-functioning electoral process. While the inclusion of a ballot for the referendum at short notice caused some confusion and added to the length of the process, the voting and counting were carried out efficiently and the Team is of the view that the 2008 General Election were credible. We are aware that up to the time of writing this report we have heard no complaint that the conduct of the election affected the results.
The following recommendations seek to identify areas and make suggestions on improvements which can be made to the electoral structure, process and environment in Belize.
• To work towards a single independent election management body which reports directly to Parliament and is autonomous from any government department.
• Thought should be given to expanding the Election and Boundaries Commission to include independent members with the Chairman appointed from this group.
• The Chief Elections Officer should report directly to the Commission and be responsible to them for the day to day conduct of elections. A reconstituted Elections and Boundaries Commission should continue to have the authority to request names of Public Service employees from Government Ministries to act as election officers.
• It is recommended that enabling mechanisms should be used to overcome the barriers to women’s participation, change perceptions and increase women’s participation as candidates. A number of models to achieve this can be found in Commonwealth countries.
• It is recommended that for transparency of the electoral process, disclosure of funding and expenditure on campaigns should be filed with the relevant Election Management Body and made publicly available.
• It would be useful for the Presiding Officer to be provided with a master voters list for each division. This would speed up any queries that may occur in relation to where a voter should cast his vote.
• We would encourage the Secretary-General of the Commonwealth to respond positively to any relevant requests for technical assistance in relation to these recommendations.”
Hopefully somebody in the new administration is listening. The Commonwealth expert team was headed by K.D. Knight, former foreign minister of Jamaica.
