Email

Print

The Belize Progressive Party was not invited to be amongst the scrutineers - despite the fact that over the last few months, they’ve been the loudest voices advocating for a “noâ€￾ vote to the ICJ. 

But, they have no seat in the National Assembly because they do not have voter support.  Still, they caught major feelings because they say that they’re being unfairly excluded from acting as part of the referendum oversight mechanism

The Belize Peace Movement, an umbrella group that focuses on the ICJ issue, staged an impromptu picket of today’s meeting.  We spoke with Patrick Rodgers about their gripes with the decision from Elections and Boundaries. Here’s what he had to say:

Patrick Rogers - Leader, BPP
"We’ve had some exchanges with the Chief Elections Officer, who, by the amendment to the Referendum Act, it is within her purview to determine who will be monitors of this referendum. Now, for her to have disrespected us, and tell us that, you know what, only member of the National Assembly will be invited to be monitors, which is to say the PUP, the UDP and the 4 social partners. That is is what has us irate.

This is a picketing to let Belize know that we’re very disappointed with the way we’ve been disrespected. We’re a partner to this process. We’ve been kept updated all along, and for us to now here that nobody that is a real solid no will be in those polling stations to be monitoring the polling that is taking place is unacceptable. So, we decided that an impromptu picketing, where they’re having this meeting right now as we speak with the Elections and Boundaries Department, cuing up the stakeholders as they deem stakeholders, the 4 social partners, the PUP and the UDP how the procedures will be carried out on the polling day.

Reporter
"Persons who have representation in the National Assembly were invited. Obviously, you all don’t."

Patrick Rogers
"But, this is not a general election. This is not a municipal election. This is a referendum. It has a referendum act. You’re polling your people to see where they sentiment lies. We are not elected anybody to go represent us anywhere. So, this is why we’re saying that it’s incorrect to use that definition that the chief elections officer chooses to use, and we do not accept that as justification for us not to have our spot in there."

"The Referendum Unit invites the Peace Movement as the respected no position holder. So, we are a stakeholder in this entire process. We’ve been given our monthly updates; everything we’ve been kept abreast, except now for on the day of polling, to be told that we don’t have anybody elected in the House of Representative, or no senator in the Senate, so we can’t get a spot to monitor these things. We have questioned the social partners’ position on this. To us, it looks like all of them are yes, anyway. So, we’re saying, only people who say yes will be monitoring this process? Something is wrong with that, Belize everybody knows the BPM is a no, so I believe Belizeans would be comforted knowing that somebody is a no was in there to sign off and say, you know what, Belize, we believe this referendum was free and fair."

We questioned the Chief Elections Officer about these complaints from the Peace Movement, and here’s how she explained why they weren’t invited to monitor the referendum:

Josephine Tamai - Chief Elections Officer
"We know that there has to be some control when it comes to a process. It’s not that we can open to each and every single organization, and each and every single individual. It would be good if we have those persons, and one of the things that I mentioned earlier, when we met, that nothing prohibits these persons from going with one of the other organizations, if the organizations want to have these persons as a part of their group, then that is fine. We want persons to see what is happening. We know the limitations when it comes to there are limitations when it comes to the polling stations, the space within the polling stations. The space within the police station, if we’re saying already that we have 6 different groups. That’s telling me 6 different monitor within those polling stations. We also have to ensure that monitors do not get as possible to where persons cast their vote because casting your vote must be secret. So, those are things that we have in place, but like I said, nothing prevents these persons from falling under any of the other umbrella. It is not something that Elections and Boundaries can say that they are entitled to do, but they can liaise with these organizations."