Belize Congratulates Foreign Relations on Elections  

Recently, the Government of Belize congratulated several foreign allies on the results of their internal elections. Among them is El Salvador, which re-elected President Nayib Bukele in February and inaugurated him on Saturday. Bukele’s administration has come under criticism recently for the mass incarceration of El Salvador’s gang members, leading some to protest his election. When asked about Belize’s attendance at the inauguration ceremony, Francis Fonseca, Minister of Foreign affairs, said that Belize attended to respect El Salvador’s democratic integrity and further strengthen ties with the country. Fonseca also congratulates India and Mexico on the election of their prime minister and president, respectively. Here’s more on that.

 

Francis Fonseca, Minister of Foreign Affairs

“We engage with leaders from all over the world. That doesn’t mean that we support their policies and their programs. But we respect the determination and decisions of their people to elect them. And we thought it was important for Belize to engage and to be present just to participate in the inauguration ceremony because we are also involved at the economic level in terms of specific projects that we’re working on with Salvador. We’re working on a sort of free trade agreement with what we call a partial scope agreement with Salvador to improve and expand trading opportunities for Belize. We’re also looking at tourism. How can we expand tourism with Salvador and again, also agriculture. So those were three areas and also investment for areas that we discussed with President Bukele and his team. Belize has a fairly, strong relationship with the government of India diplomatic relationship. But we’re always looking for opportunities to strengthen that relationship, expand that relationship again. You’re talking about a country of one point four billion or so people so therein, again, you have tremendous opportunities for tourism, for trade, for investment so you know we certainly look forward we’ve had a good relationship over the past three and a half years with India. The government of Prime Minister Modi he has been reelected by the people of India. And although his government lost some ground he has been re elected. And we look forward, again, to working with him and his government and strengthening the bilateral ties between Belize and India. We were very excited about the election of the new president Doctor Claudia Sheinbaum in Mexico. She represents the same party of the present president, president Amlo.  I’m looking we have enjoyed a very good relationship with President Amlo. Particularly Prime Minister Briceño, has a very strong personal relationship with him. Prime Minister has already spoken to the new president-elect. He spoke to her the night of the election, her election victory. So we look forward again. There are tremendous opportunities for Belize in terms of our relationship with Mexico.”