Area representatives sanguine about redistricting process

By Aaron Humes: Come rain or shine, Belize’s electoral map will look a lot different by next July, when the Elections and Boundaries Commission (EBC), by court order, will have decided the new electoral boundaries to be fought in the next general election.

On Tuesday the claimants in the case, most of whom are members of the Belize PEACE Movement (BPM), stated that they would not stipulate to the EBC how to do their jobs except to ensure that per Section 90 of the Constitution, the divisions are as nearly equal to each other as possible in terms of registered voters.

Two of the divisions most likely to be affected are Stann Creek West and Freetown, held respectively by the People’s United Party’s Rodwell Ferguson and Francis Fonseca. Both men are veterans and familiar with the ins and outs of their division – the former the biggest in the country in terms of electorate, the latter one of the smallest.

Ferguson today lamented when asked about his Christmas plans for the division that “I can’t give everybody [in the division] a ham and turkey because I can’t afford it; but I will give every child in my constituency a toy. As a matter of fact, eight thousand of them – I noh wah hear if you da red, I noh wah hear if you da blue, you are a Belizean child, so you are entitled to a toy and a party, for all the children.”

But he almost expects that the constituency, which has 10,284 voters at present according to the Elections and Boundaries Department, “will be reduced by 50 percent or in two – right now it has about eleven thousand voters so it will be cut in two. I have developed a relationship with all my voters – it’s a bittersweet moment. Bittersweet moment, but I have to make a decision, I have to decide which side I want to choose because any side I take, I believe I can win because I work with my people.”

And while he has that luxury, elections expert Sean P. Trende’s 2020 report for the court case postulated three new-look electoral maps, all of which see Freetown reabsorbed into Caribbean Shores after being split from it in 1984.

But Fonseca still holds out hope, saying, “I don’t think it makes sense to comment on that process. That is a process that is driven by the Election and Boundaries Commission, let’s see where it leads. At the end of the day, tough decisions will have to be made, important decisions will have to be made in the national interest. Those decisions, I think, will be made in an open and transparent way not favoring any political party, so let’s see where that leads. It is driven as I said by Elections and Boundaries; when that report is tabled in the National Assembly, that’s when we will have an opportunity to engage and have a discussion.”

The Commission has promised to engage the press on where it is with the process in the coming days. We expect to have further stories detailing the Trende recommendations as well as claims that past elections have been “unconstitutional” as a result of boundaries not being redistricted and where we stand in relation to the election system.

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