Peace Movement Writes G-G on Redistricting & Elections

The Belize Peace Movement has written to the Governor-General, asking her intervention should the Prime Minister decide to call elections before the High Court rules on a matter that is before it. On Wednesday, the B.P.M, through its attorney, Arthur Saldivar, concluded its arguments before Justice Nadine Nabie in which it asked the court to order the Elections and Boundaries Commission to expedite the redistricting exercise. And today, the Movement wrote to Governor-General, Dame Froyla Tzalam, asking her to use her powers afforded under the Constitution. The B.P.M pointed to the previous government’s decision to hold elections without a redistricting exercise and in anticipation of a possible repeat of that scenario, sought the G-G’s intervention. The letter states in part, “We respectfully urge that should the Prime Minister advise your office to dissolve the National Assembly prior to the conclusion of the said litigation in the High Court, that you invoke your power under the Belize Constitution, section eighty-four-four-A.” That section of the Constitution reads, “If the Prime Minister advises a dissolution and the Governor-General, acting in his own deliberate judgment, considers that the Government of Belize can be carried on without a dissolution and that a dissolution would not be in the interests of deliberate judgement, refuse to dissolve the National Assembly.” Today, Leader of the Belize Peace Movement, Bobby Lopez explained to News Five that they are contemplating all the avenues that the Constitution provides for to get the redistricting to occur before the next General Elections and the Governor-General was one way.

 

Via phone: Robert Bobby Lopez, Leader, Belize Peace Movement

“We have also been considering what other safeguards we can have in place, and one that we have been looking at for some time is the office of the Governor General that constitutionally, she does have certain powers, certain responsibilities with regards to safeguarding our democracy and how we are governed. And so we decided to also send her a letter and apprise her of what is happening currently with the case of redivisioning in the court and also just  requesting that should the Prime Minister decide to call early elections and redistricting has not been done to the satisfaction of our Constitution she has the power to say not quite yet, Mr. Prime Minister, this needs to be taken care of first, so that it ensures that we have free and fair elections. So that’s a constitutional   responsibility that the Governor General holds. And that’s why we quoted it in the letter to her.”