Red alert: Opposition claims redistricting process becoming “clandestine”, “corrupt”

By Aaron Humes: The Opposition United Democratic Party (UDP) are suspecting they could be getting cheated out of chances to represent the people of Belize through the redistricting process which has kicked into high gear.

In a statement, the UDP revealed that the Election and Boundaries Commission (EBC) has not met for more than six months and that the Redistricting Task Force created earlier this year has been granted two 2-month extensions on the deadline for the delivery of their draft report to the EBC.

Opposition member on the Commission and former chair Alberto August has requested a meeting by letter with Chief Elections Officer Josephine Tamai and Commission chair Oscar Sabido to discuss the progress of the redistricting process and review new mechanisms introduced in the Village Council elections held this year.

But that doesn’t stop the Opposition from worrying about clandestine wrongdoing and being cheated out of a fair and transparent process. It also confirms that statistical analyst Martin Aldana resigned from the task force due to alleged “political interference and claims, “The lack of transparency, inability to meet deadlines, high-level resignations, and partisan influence on the redistricting exercise has rendered the anticipated report as corrupt and dead on arrival. The People’s United Party has turned a crucial democratic exercise into a mafia-like backroom turf distribution meeting of The Family.”

In speaking with the press at the start of the Task Force’s agenda, Tamai offered a commitment to provide a progress report by November of this year which has not been done.

Recently, in the Belize Peace Movement’s case settlement in the Supreme Court, the Commission undertook to present its final report on the process to the National Assembly by no later than July 31, 2023.

Belize currently has nearly 189,000 voters divided into 31 constituencies, with the largest in Stann Creek West at more than 10 thousand voters and the smallest in Fort George at about a fifth of that figure. The Constitution caveats that the number of constituencies cannot be lower than 28, and that they must be as nearly equal to each other as possible with regard to their size and other features to facilitate voting.

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