And, while the referendum was not about PUP and UDP - there is a political dimension to everything. Truth is, without political parties you won't get a 65% turnout, or anywhere close. Sure enough, they do the heavy lifting on election, or referendum days. And with both parties openly campaigning for yes or no positions, the results have to be analyzed within a political context.
The Prime Minister spoke about that a little at his press conference yesterday. He discussed first what happened in Toledo which went all for the "No" vote - and Cayo, which went partly "no" - against political expectations:...
Rt. Hon. Dean Barrow, Prime Minister
"We always knew that it would be extremely hard going into Toledo and so the fact that the no prevailed in both Toledo East and Toledo West, was no surprise. I think, especially in Toledo East, the yes did surprisingly well. Remember that, as you say, it was almost a kind of tripartite no effort in terms of Toledo East. You had the PUP, you had Wil Mehia, you had his television station, you had the peace movement, you had the Belize Territorial Volunteers - I don't know sometimes, Wil is a man for all season, so he might be representative of all of the above. In Toledo West, again - the no campaign garnered a huge head start from day one, the representative for the PUP in that area were clear. That was not surprising. In terms of the west, while they jumped out early, as I said, I didn't expect that the no would prevail in Cayo West. I certainly didn't expect that the no would prevail in Cayo North, but then, kudos to Ramon Witz because I would have thought the no would have prevailed in Cayo South. So, with these things, the eternal law of politics or anything politically related prevails. You just can't figure these things out and you just can't figure out people and there's no real explanation or why and how certain things happen."
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