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Today the Friends Of Belize held a press conference to publicly declare it and challenge the Prime Minister to cling to something that they say is part of the consultation process:

Tanya Usher - Director, Friends of Belize
"This petition was executed during, and is a legitimate part of the consultation process. Friends of Belize therefore hopes that the Prime Minister will heed the people's request for a referendum, and delay the entry into force of the 9th amendment until the people of Belize have exercised their democratic rights and express their will in respect of this matter which is of utmost public importance."

Lisa Zayden - Auditor, Horwath
"We have reviewed the integrity of the processes used by Friends of Belize to obtain the signatures submitted to the Governor General, and we are evaluating the effectiveness of those processes in design and execution, in order to attest to the validity of signatures included in the statistically generated sample."

Lisa Shoman - Attorney, Friends of Belize
"The law is clear, and the Prime Minister of our people will tell you that he has to follow the law. And so, the public has a right to expect that the law will be respected and carried out. And now that the presentations under the law have occurred, it now triggers a series of steps that will take place, steps in which the Governor General must under the law, ask the Chief Elections Officers to verify these petitions, and they must be done within a period of time. And all of that has to trigger a referendum once the legal threshold of 10% of the voting population has been verifiably passed."

Tanya Usher
"We hope that 21,000 people will be enough of a public consultation to show that this is an issue that should be taken to a referendum. It is what people want, and it should be respected. So that is our hope."

Jules Vasquez
"Will the PUP and the Friends of Belize join forces?"

Tanya Usher
"Well, we launched the petition on September 12. Today is October 12. We had 1 month, a very short period to accomplish a very high optimistic goal, which gladly we did. So we worked with many different people."

Jules Vasquez
"How do you answer those criticisms that it's just Ashcroft Alliance creating mischief, running interference, when it knows that the Government intends to pass this, and that purpose of this is only symbolic because referendums are not binding?"

Tanya Usher
"Okay, So I'll address it in parts, the many points that you brought up. 1, they were all your points-of-view. Second, we didn't pay people to work. They were given an allowance of $2. As I mentioned, this was a process -"

Jules Vasquez
"$2 per - "

Tanya Usher
"$2 per signature, correct. We wanted to get a well-rounded collection from all constituencies. As you know, many constituencies consisted of small villages. It required a lot of transportation. It required that these volunteers eat, and they were given a stipend to cover their food and their transportation costs, yes. Second of all, the whole Ashcroft Alliance thing is your way of wording it. Friends of Belize is a Non-Governmental Organization that has multiple sources of funding. That is not up for question or for discussion at this time."

Under the law, the Governor General must now hand the binders with the names to the elections and boundaries office which - under the law - has two months to certify that the names are legitimate.

The law prescribes that the Governor general then has 30 days to set a date for the referendum.

But while that's what the law says - it's not quite that simple. The Prime Minister this evening told us that no individual or body can impose a fetter on the legislature.

He added that in terms of passing a constitutional amendment - there is no requirement for a referendum before that amendment can be passed - and asked, quote, "why would we allow the Friends of Belize to impose a fetter upon the legislature?"

And so while the legislature won't be stopped, will the referendum even be held? The PM says "no way" because quote, "a referendum is to inform the legislative process and it is futile after the legislative is completed." He added that, quote "It cannot be that an advisory referendum is to be held on a constitutional amendment after it has already been passed."

So that's where it stands tonight - though it is unclear where government will intervene to stop the process as it has been formally triggered with the delivery of the signatures to the Governor General.