7 News Belize

Drilling Down Into The Referendum Numbers
posted (May 10, 2019)

Going back now to the result of Wednesday’s referendum, Jules Vasquez drilled down into the numbers looking for trends and possible geographic reasons why 9 divisions voted “noâ€￾ while 22 voted “yesâ€￾

As this map shows, the “Yesâ€￾ vote prevailed in 22 constituencies. Those are the areas colored green - while the areas in orange said “noâ€￾.

Interestingly four of the “noâ€￾ constituencies are along the Guatemala border - four of them - Toledo East and West and Cayo West and Cayo North - all bordering Guatemala.

Another “noâ€￾ constituency, Orange Walk North is against the border with Mexico, while two more, Corozal Bay and Corozal Southeast are set against territorial waters that border Mexico’s waters.

So, you can say that of the 9 constituencies which voted “noâ€￾ - 7 of them are along a border.

The only landlocked divisions that voted no are the constituencies of the two most powerful PUP politicians, Leader John Briceno, and National Deputy Cordel Hyde - but of whom campaigned for no.

Hyde’s Lake Independence was the only division out of 13 in the Belize District which voted “noâ€￾ - and it did so with the largest percentage of voters saying “noâ€￾ at 55%.

For the Yes, the two most powerful UDP politicians delivered the strongest results. In UDP Leader’s division, Queen’s Square - which had the highest turnout percentage in the country at 84% - that area also had the greatest percentage of voters saying “yesâ€￾ - 81%, or four out of every five voters said yes.

In the neighboring Mesopotamia division, 77% of the voters said yes, that’s about three out of every four voters - again, the seat of 6 term representative Michael Finnegan.

Across the City - support for the “yesâ€￾ vote was overwhelming - more than 60% of the voters in 8 of the 10 divisions including PUP held divisions - voted “yes.â€￾ And even the much criticized Wilfred Elrington got 55% of the voters in his Pickstock division to vote “yes.â€￾

Numerically, the most “yesâ€￾ votes came from the Belize District where turnout was also highest at just under 70%.

Turnout was lowest in the Toledo District - the only district with less than 60% voter turnout overall. Notably, Toledo East where the “noâ€￾ campaigning was most militant, also had the lowest turnout at 58%.

We thank TBSL for use of their online visuals and you can find a link to all that at 7newsbelize.com.

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