Inside the two hour E&B meeting, candidates had the opportunity to share concerns and opinions. Roody Wade, who is both the leader of the Belize Justice Movement and a claimant in the BPM's redistricting case, stood up to passionately criticize political parties who pay off voters.
It's a political norm and a standard practice of mass parties, and Wade says it's unfair and unjust. He specifically called out the UDP's vice chairman Alberto August.
Today the media asked both Wade and August about these accusations.
Roody Wade, Leader - Belize Justice Movement
"My discontent is that there are laws already in black and white. And these people keep derogating these same laws for 25, 30 years. And I personally have been a candidate on several occasions. And I know the ills, and I see it, and I keep speaking about it."
"I mean, I produce evidence, all the illegal things that happen contrary to what he had just displayed. I mean, that's what I'm saying, you know, it's the law, it's still. Why don't it's been fixed?"
"So all my thing is that here I go into an election with a clean heart. I mean, try to do the right thing. Then when I go, I see all this corruption, right, in terms of buying votes, right, in terms of, you know, like I mentioned, about 100 yards. You know, I mean, it's plain to be seen, you go to any one of these polling stations on that day of election, you see they are right up at the gate. So who is there to police that, you know? I mean, you know, say hey man, don't do that."
"But, you know, he's so sad."
Alberto August, Commissioner, E&B Commission
"Maybe it's not a matter that I want to speak to in terms of Mr. Wade's utterances, because you guys were in there and you will see the boisterous way in which he was acting to the point where the police had to intervene."
"And so I wouldn't want to comment on that. He speaks and I know Mr. Wade. We're not friends, but we are acquaintances. We live in the same neighborhood and sometimes he speaks from a standpoint of limited knowledge and basically that was what he did in there."
Reporter
"Would you agree though that this is an issue, bribery and that it stains this democratic process?"
Alberto August, Commissioner, E&B Commission
"I would be disingenuous if I stand here and tell you that that is not an issue. Of course it's an issue. There are some people who come out there on election day to make a little money, but there are genuine persons who travel from far with the promise that come to vote for me and, I will pay your passage to get back from where you came. And so that might have been, in terms of myself, that might have been what he saw."
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