Photo: Attorney Oscar Sabido

by Kory Leslie (Freelance Writer)

BELIZE CITY, Mon. Dec 19, 2022

For years, Belize’s voting population has been preparing for an impending redistricting exercise which would result in a more equitable distribution of voters across the country’s 31 electoral divisions. The importance of the exercise has been publicly highlighted by both the UDP and PUP administrations during their past tenures in office but had not resulted in significant action by either party. This prompted criticism from many quarters, as some of Belize’s constituencies are known to be significantly larger than others. These disparities have undoubtedly affected the results of Belize’s elections and created political strongholds for many ministers who have enjoyed long-lasting careers in certain divisions.

The Belize Peace Movement (BMP), a citizen-led organization, has been championing the immediate redistricting of our electoral divisions since 2019 and made every effort to have the exercise carried out in time for the November 2020 General Elections. While their endeavors did not affect those elections, the BPM did manage to gather enough data, with the help of American elections analyst, Sean P. Trende, to submit a report to the Supreme Court as part of an effort to pressure the GoB to take action. This was accompanied by a civil suit brought against the Elections and Boundaries Commission (EBC) and the Attorney General’s Ministry.

Three years later, the BPM is finally making headway with their attempts, after a consent order was handed down by the Supreme Court which would require that the EBC resolve the redistricting challenges with oversight from the BPM. The consent order requires that the Elections and Boundaries Commission provide a report detailing their recommendations for the redistricting exercise to the BPM by July of 2023. This is to be guided by the aforementioned report submitted by Sean P. Trende and the Belize Peace Movement. The EBC must also provide those recommendations to the Attorney General’s Ministry so that a bill can be drafted and presented to the National Assembly by July 2023 as well.

Admittedly, the Elections and Boundaries Commission did announce earlier this year that a Redistricting Taskforce was formed and is being chaired by the Chief Elections Officer, Joesphine Tamai. Following the issuance of the consent order, however, the BPM released a statement requesting the support of the public in holding the EBC and the GoB accountable for fulfilling their commitment to the redistricting process. The chairman of the Elections and Boundaries Commission, attorney Oscar Sabido, held a media briefing at which he affirmed that the EBC will play its part in the process but will do so according to Belize’s Constitution:

“The Commission has the duty, and it will execute its duty in accordance with the Constitution, but it is not oblivious of the fact that the Commission must act in accordance with the law. And there is no reason why the Commission will not take proper legal advice. And when I say proper legal advice, I mean proper legal advice from competent persons who are conversant with the law that has to do with redistricting. Law that is relevant to our jurisdiction, not the United States. And in the process, we will find a way that is going to be legal and correct,” he said.

Regarding the Taskforce itself, Sabido said that all members are professionally knowledgeable of the technical aspects of conducting the redistricting process properly. Sabido also addressed the criticism of the Commission by former Taskforce member, statistical analyst, Martin Aldana, who resigned in August of this year, stating that the actions of the Taskforce were being influenced by political figures. In reference to those allegations, Sabido stated that Mr. Aldana “was free, as an independent expert to make his comments. And we don’t have anything to say about Mr. Aldana’s comments because the only thing we can say is that we had to redo everything. And we had to ask for extensions in October to be able to continue working and redoing all the statistical analysis, and all the, whatever he was doing there in terms of his area of expertise. We had to redo it. But he can make any accusations he wants, he’s free to do that. We don’t have any comments to make about that.”