PM on Redistricting: “I don’t think it’s a matter of controversy.”

Justice Tawanda Hondora has yet to rule on a case brought to the High Court by several claimants, including Jeremy Enriquez. The case concerns the overdue redistricting exercise that the P.U.P. promised to complete before the upcoming general election. When asked about it on Sunday, the Prime Minister shared an intriguing perspective on the last-minute filing.

 

Prime Minister John Briceño

“I don’t think it’s a matter of controversy.  If these people knew that that’s what they wanted to do, they could have done it a long time ago.  I think they started to do this, I believe, just trying to get attention when they started to hear that we are going to call elections.  It has been no secret, I’ve said it.  I have been under pressure from last year to call the elections and I’ve been saying no, we’re not going to call elections until 2025 and last year December I met with my closest advisors and we felt that March is a good month.  Usually, it’s dry, it’s cool and people are working, so we thought that that would be a good time to call the elections and that’s what we did.  Now when these people come at the last moment to try to stop this election, I think it’s unfortunate, but we have followed the law and, as prime minister, I have the right to call an election whenever I believe it is the right time.  I believe it is the right time.  I have committed before that one of the priorities of the new government, of the PUP government when we get in is to ensure that we could have the redistricting successfully.  Unfortunately, it was not done successfully and it was being rejected by everybody, by all sides.  So we need to make sure that we can do something that can meet the tests in the courts, because if we are proceeding with what was presented, it was going to be challenged in court and then I believe that the court would have overturned that.  So we want to make sure that we do it right.”