And the High Court is still yet to make a decision on an urgent application for an interim injunction prohibiting the Governor General from making a proclamation for the holding of general election.
That's what Jeremy Enriquez, Rudolph Norales and Jessica Tulcey along with their attorney Anand Ramlogan are clamoring for after they were unable to get an injunction from the court to stop the Prime Minister from instructing the Governor General to. Dissolve the house.
It was a long shot - but once the attorney for the Attorney General, Eamon Courtenay yesterday - wrote to Ramlogan yesterday telling him they would give no 5 day notice of their plan to call election, the Trinidadian attorney and his local counterparts went into a flurry of activity to get an application for an injunction filed and heard before the PM could call it.
But they didn't succeed and today claimant Jerry Enriquez maintained that an elections without first having a redistricting exercise is fraudulent:
Jerry Enriquez, Pushing for Re-districting
"We worked into the night to file an injunction. And so we did file in the court's portal last night, hoping that this morning by around 8.30 or so, we would have some kind of response. But unfortunately, we learned that there was some problem with the portal and we had to get some printed documents into the court."
"And so to get 400 pages printed took a while and we were a little late in filing. But it's disappointing. But at the same time, it shows the country, the entrenched system that we have, very deeply entrenched system. And not only that it is entrenched, but that there is strong resistance and insistence to having the status quo remain."
Jules Vasquez
"Do you believe or was it your expectation that the government would have exercised what you construe to be good faith and said, okay, these people have something that they say they want to ventilate, let us wait and see. Is that, was that your expectation?"
Jerry Enriquez, Pushing for Re-districting
"We did have that expectation for decency and respect by the government, especially that we send the pre-action letter to them to indicate. We also sent to the governor general to say, listen, can you give us a little bit of time before any, so that we can file our injunction."
"We did not get that response from the governor general nor the prime minister. And then they went ahead in a sort of a kind of an ambush to get the process done, to call elections without the redistricting."
"But I'm still hopeful that the judges are reviewing the situation and we'll see what happens from there. When the prime minister said in his statement this morning, something to the effect that we are a model democracy, that it's in the face, a blatant lie, we're calling an election that is in violation of the Constitution. The Prime Minister promised from the beginning of this term that he's going to find ways to rectify that situation and we're back to this same thing that we started with."
"The bottom line is that there has been no resolution up to this point to the redistricting and we're entering an illegal election with all the gross severe malapportionment of electoral divisions."
Jules Vasquez
"Should people in protest, people who support you, what would you advise them to do? lodge a protest vote, don't vote, what would you say?"
Jerry Enriquez, Pushing for Re-districting
"I would, I am not voting, so I would encourage people not to vote and if we have a people in mass not do that it could register our sentiments, our voice as to what we feel about the election."
"Secondly, any observer of our electoral process, whether it be OAS, the Commonwealth, I want them to know already that they're coming to observe something fraudulent."
Jules Vasquez
"Politicians love low outcomes. They spend less money. It's a more predictable outcome. They control the variables. So once again, you're playing into the corrupt political establishment hand."
Jerry Enriquez, Pushing for Re-districting
"We've got to find a way in every way to address this. We have to bring international attention to this issue. We have to bring regional attention to this issue. But most importantly, we're going to drive it through the courts at the highest level. As a people of Belize, we're screwed by our own politicians who people think we could trust, but they are really very committed to maintaining the status quo."
Jules Vasquez
"Do you think the court properly treated it as an urgent matter?"
Jerry Enriquez, Pushing for Re-districting
"I think they are. It's still a matter in the court."
Jules Vasquez
"If this were a man's life or a woman's life on the line who's about to be hanged, that person would have hanged already."
Jerry Enriquez, Pushing for Re-districting
"That person would have hanged."
Reporter
"How far are you willing to go?"
Jerry Enriquez, Pushing for Re-districting
"We're going to the highest court as far as we could go. The Caribbean Court of Justice, if possible."
We understand the matter was this afternoon assigned to Justice Hondora and Enriquez says he hopes it will be heard tomorrow. It asks the court to grant an order of Mandamus against the Prime Minister directing him to revoke his advice to the Governor General on dissolving the house and another injunction prohibiting the Governor General from issuing the writ of election - which has likely already been issued via an extraordinary gazette.
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