Also, in the few hours left before the General Elections, the Chief Elections Officer and UDP Chairman Alberto August are not the only ones whose integrity has been called into question. The Church has come under fire, and it forced a reaction from them today.
Sometime between late yesterday and early this morning, the Breaking Belize News Organization published an article, which brought pressure on the Leaders of the Belize Council of Churches and the Belize Evangelical Association of Churches. Now, we should mention that the content produced by Breaking Belize News is prepared by independent news bloggers who use Facebook as their main marketing tool to reach their followers and readers.
The article purports to quote from some mystery press release that the Churches sent out following their meeting with the Leader of the Opposition. Of Course, the PUP sent out their own statement last week to note this meeting. But, in this purported press release, which the Church flatly denies having any connection to, it suggests that the Leaders of the two religious organizations are campaigning for the PUP and suggesting to their Christian followers to vote against the ruling UDP Government.
Well, the Council of Churches quickly called an impromptu press conference to refute every single thing that the article suggests that they are doing. Here's what the leaders told us this morning:
Bishop Phillip Wright, VP - Belize Council of Churches
"The church then also issued a release which basically announced a meeting with Fonseca and encourage Christians to vote for the PUP on Wednesday. One particular sentence in that release condemned the current government stating "over the past 8 years, we have been in a struggle for the soul of our nation. We have fought and witness in utter disbelief as our nation sovereignty and Christian foundation continues to be eclipse by a global secular agenda." It ends by stating "Christians raise you voice, raise your vote." and the last paragraph says in the article "we know this release from the church has upset many persons who have taken to Facebook to voice their concerns and disapproval for the church's involvement in politics and persuasion to vote for a particular party." Those 3 paragraphs in particular there, we could understand why we have tremendous concerns. Accusing us of asking people to vote for a particular party, which would never be anything near where we would go and to indict a current administration in the manner in which this article is doing, which is again against our principle and finally of course to suggest that somehow as a church we are encouraging a particular direction. So my friends you can understand again why we take very seriously an article that misrepresents where we stand and what we have actually said."
Rev. Roosevelt Papouloute, President - Belize Council of Churches
"We disassociate ourselves with whatever this article is saying. We have nothing to do with the particular press release that this article is referring to. There is a no way as a church community we would say to people whether to go and vote for a particular party."
Pastor Howell Longsworth, President - Evangelical Association
"My concern is that the desperation of some people to use and attack the spiritual leaders in our nation for political reasons is certainly one that we cannot agree with."
Interestingly enough, the Article has been pulled from the Breaking Belize News website, but as you can see here, evidence of it is still up on Facebook, where it was originally posted. Of Course, which we clicked the link, it took us to a section of the Breaking Belize News which says that the page does not exist.
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