If we are to remain with 31 electoral divisions, then the proposed redistricting forwarded by the hired expert, if followed to the letter, will absorb Fort George, the constituency of the 1998 to 2008 prime minister, and Queen’s Square, the constituency of the 2008 to 2020 prime minister.

I don’t think Belize wants more electoral divisions. If we went to a referendum, we would likely find that Belizeans think there are too many electoral divisions already. The way it looks on this redistricting, Jerry Enriquez and the BPM will have their way. It looks like an idea whose time has come. A decade or so ago, I explained why I was not in favor of such a move, but today they have my vote.

Interestingly, in two of the world’s more famous democracies, the USA and the UK, the electoral districts aren’t divvied up efficiently to make all votes equal. Maybe it is not in those countries’ constitutions, as it is in ours.

In the US state of California, there were 19.6 million registered voters in 2018, and in Mississippi in 2019 there were 1.9 million registered voters. California contributed 55 electoral votes toward the election of a new president of the country in 2020, and Mississippi contributed 6 electoral votes. The simple arithmetic shows that 356,363 Californians made up an electoral vote, while 316,666 Mississippians made up one electoral vote. A US candidate for president can win the seat with a minority vote, as President Trump (62,984,828 popular votes) did when he defeated Hilary Clinton (65,853,514 votes) in 2016.

Once it has happened in Belize that the party that won the popular vote lost the general elections. In 1993 the PUP got 36,082 popular votes, 1,776 more than the UDP, who got 34,306, but the UDP won 16-13 in seats and formed the government. Don’t ever feel sorry for the PUP. Ahem, it served them right. Back in the 1970s they stole an area rep from the UDP, and back in 1989 they stole another area rep from the UDP. And, to the incredulity of a nation, they attempted to steal two UDPs in 1993, so they could form the government. That last one, the attempt, isn’t written in stone, like the first two raids, but they having already twice seduced UDP representatives to cross the floor, well, they clearly liked the crime.

The present area representative for Fort George, Henry Charles, is the minister responsible for the department in charge of redistricting, and that is a problem, because he has much work to do in the critical area of reform, and if he is consumed with saving his division, then his forces will be scattered, and his credibility might get shattered too. This redistricting, it’s not the easiest of tasks before him, even if his division wasn’t up for doing the big disappear; but if he does right, he could sail off a mighty hero.
Ahm, ehm, in a way George Price is on trial here. Everyone knows that whenever tough decisions come up, Henry Charles gets in front of a mirror and asks: What would Uncle George do?

I wish Henry well, and like the rest of the nation, I will be watching him.

Can’t let Julius off the hook

At the close of the year, my area rep, Julius Espat, sat down with Nuri Muhammad on Krem’s WUB, and in response to the question, why blue comes in and does the same bad daam thing the red did, Julius said that happens because we don’t have the laws in place, that things the people want to put an end to will continue until then. I mentioned Julius because he is the one who said it, but his twenty-five colleagues, who all took the Three Musketeers pledge, would have responded the same way. And the five on the other side, that’s just how they will see it when fu dehn turn come again.

I said five on the other side, but physically it’s only four. One of them is missing; her name is Sista B, and she is flubbing big time, because she has made not a yea or nay on the laws that have been passed in the House since November 2020. Making laws/revoking laws is where it’s at, a big prize for getting elected to the H of R. Hmm, all kinds of people want to get there to make their difference.

In the democracies, most everyone who doesn’t have a foul record has a chance to get in on the game, even rappers and boxers. Over in the Philippines, PacMan Pacquiao…wait, faysi Pacquiao is spending a fortune trying to get himself elected president. Pray, on what credentials, Sir?

I’ll tell you about those credentials. The man’s a boxer, won a lot of fights. But, he lost a lot of fights too, and the Filipinos, no pushovers, see clearly that if they vote for PacMan, then the Manifest Destiny crowd will say, our guy, Mayweather, kicked your president’s ass.

The Mexicans are a lot more humble than their northern neighbors, but how would they be able to stop themselves from gloating when their guy, Juan Manuel Marquez, humiliated PacMan. Floyd Mayweather danced around PacMan and jabbed him up in the face, but Juan Manuel clocked him, laid him out flat on the canvas.

I have a proposition for our Sista B, who is flirting with earning a place in the Guinness Book of World Records, for elected representative who made the least appearances in their country’s national assembly. It is Dean Barrow that got Sista B elected, but I can see why she wouldn’t want him to be writing any speeches for her. That man’s a sham, sat at the head of the table for 13 years, and what did he do — he proved Rufus X right. Dean Barrow hurt a lot of us when he proved that radical knew what he was talking about when he said we fools had elected a prime minister who was cozy with Ashcroft. I bet as fast as Barrow writes a speech for her, wise Sista B puts them in the trash.

I really would like to write a speech for her, on behalf of all of us who will never make it to the big house, because we will never run, or because we belong to a third party. In my first sentence in the first paragraph I’d apologize for the rotten governments Barrow and Faber misled between 2008 and 2020. I learned that from Finnegan. The humble card is very big when you are out of power. After playing contrite I’ll get into the meat of things, starting with why the UDP didn’t want Faber.

In my second paragraph…wait, it doesn’t matter what I write in the second paragraph because by the end of the first one the UDP leader will have gotten the drift, that nothing good will be coming his way, and he’ll push past Patt, push down Shyne, beg for a pass from Tracy, and tell Sista B she is lucky he is doing so well at anger management school…but don’t test him.

I really think people who have their own problems, like attention deficit for example, should make an effort to keep the focus. I was saying about this 26, YOU heard the people’s cries, YOU echoed the people’s cries, YOU promised to deal with the people’s problems, so why the heck haven’t you passed the laws to put an end to political leaders doing the people wrong?

There are two types of leaders, those who are there to play lords, and those who are there to serve. Bah, we’ve been electing a lot of lords in this country. Leaders who are lords lead countries to bloody revolutions. We need leaders who want to serve.