Will general elections be before March 2025? Government appears to already be making supplementary budget allocation for the elections

Published by [email protected] at November 10, 2024

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Posted: Sunday, November 10, 2024. 4:08 pm CST.

By Aaron Humes: Prime Minister John Briceño has long insisted that general elections will not be called in 2024, but they are constitutionally due in 2025 and new evidence has surfaced suggesting they may be called early in 2025.

Breaking Belize News (BBN) has seen part of the supplementary allocation to be approved by the House of Representatives at its next meeting on Tuesday which carries a subheading for the Ministry of the Public Service, Constitutional and Political Reform and Religious Affairs, under which the Elections and Boundaries Department is listed (the Elections and Boundaries Commission is separate).

$343,787 has been allocated to the Department head office in Belmopan under ‘General Election,’ which presumably goes to the preparation of ballot papers, other supplies, signs and election-related paraphernalia.

This has engendered speculation that an election may be called before March, when another Budget is scheduled to be read in the House of Representatives. In 2008 when elections were called for February, the Budget was delayed until July by the incoming government led by Prime Minister Dean Barrow.

Unless the Prime Minister’s decision is soon communicated to the Governor-General, the House will stand dissolved on November 20, 2025. Elections are typically called for 30 days after the dissolution, with nominations taken about two weeks before. If the House continues until November 20, there will be 90 days to call an election.

There are several factors to be weighed by the Prime Minister including his own party’s electoral readiness after convincingly winning municipal elections and a by-election this year; the current weakness and division in the rival United Democratic Party (UDP) which may face rivaling slates each claiming the Party’s name contesting the election; the possibility of an injunction from the Belize PEACE Movement challenging the legality of the election with unredistricted boundaries; and other factors.

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