It's been almost 3 months since we last featured the Belize Progressive Party on our newscast. That's the independent party which wants to become Belize's third party, and a credible alternative to the PUDP two party system.
They have adopted the ICJ referendum on the Belize Guatemala dispute as their flagship public issue, along with trying to get the Public to force the government of the day to sign on to the United Nations Convention Against Corruption.
And now, they've come up with a plan to try to get all that done in one fell swoop. They want to trigger a sort of "omnibus referendum" in which these 2 issues along with the questions of whether marijuana should be legalized, and whether the Government should accept the Chief Justice's amendment to the sodomy law.
Today, the party hosted a press conference to pitch the idea. Here's how they put it:
Paco Smith, Chairman - BPP
"Belize Progressive Party is calling for a comprehensive referendum that will feature social issues that are affecting this nation. In that regard, because we know that a referendum is not a cheap process, its quite expensive. We are calling for several social issues to be place on referendum to be address to the public. The first issue that we proposed shall be placed on this comprehensive referendum that we will be calling for is whether Belize should agree to take the matter of Guatemala's unfounded claim to the ICJ. Well that a given, because there is supposedly going to be a referendum on that. So we are saying tacked on these other issues to it. The second, and this is something very critical, because after 3 successive victories at the polls the administration of the prime minister Dean Barrow still refuses to sign on to the UN convention against corruption. Now if you feel corruption is not a problem in this country, I'd have to ask you which country you are living in, because you can see corruption everywhere you go and most unfortunately it's at the highest levels of government."
"The second issue is whether GOB should signed on to the UN convention against corruption. Because if the prime minister seems to have a problem with it, we say take it to the people and see what the people say."
"The third: is the issue of whether marijuana should be legalized in Belize and the 4th and final issue that we are going to seek to have placed on a comprehensive referendum is the people's perspective with regard to the Chief Justice's ruling on section 53 of the criminal code."
Robert "Bobby" Lopez, Treasurer, B.P.P.
"As you all know that we really only had one referendum in this country and that was the referendum whether we wanted an elected senate and it was tied into the election of 2008 and then later on OCEANA tried to trigger a referendum against offshore drilling. Well we have done our homework and that exercise cost in the vicinity of $300,000. Now we are prepared at the Belize Progressive Party to embarked on triggering another referendum so that these real national issues can and will forced the government once it is successful and we feel it can be successful especially the plethora of issues we would be placing on the ICJ referendum, because that is coming whether we like it or not and so we are prepared at the Belize Progressive Party to seek this funding. We think it's important enough that we will champion a people's referendum and raise that money."
And BPP Leader Patrick Rogers also criticized the Barrow Government for not appealing the decision. Rogers told the media that he interprets the decision as the Prime Minister using the Chief Justice to play the role of bad cop, just so that he and his Administration does not have to really tackle the polarizing issue and avoid alienating either the Christians or the LGBT community:
Patrick Rogers, Party Leader, B.P.P.
"The only thing that can reverse that ruling by the Chief Justice is if the legislators do like they did with the BTL acquisition act and legislate where the country morality and spirituality is at and then put it out of the judge's hand. Because every judge including the CCJ judges will have to rule based on the fact that Belize has signed United Nations Conventions that has already been defined life choice matter of same sex activities as a human right. So let's not fool ourselves. The prime minister was hiding behind that piece of legislation that he knows has tied every judge that would ever rule on that matter that it is a matter of human rights as opposed to a life choice."
"I'm saying to you all today that it is the duty of the government of the day to push that appeal, because we know the objective would not be to appeal to reach the CCJ. The objective would then be to appeal to sample the people and see where the people stand and the of they have to legislate on what side of the moral and spiritual issues this country lies, then they make the legislation and any judge thereafter would have to rule that the law of the land is as the people referendum has determine it and the legislators are just going to do their job of fixing the laws the way the people want it. So don't let us fool ourselves, the prime minister is playing around setting up the churches to go through an appeal and knowing that the churches will lose at the CCJ, because the only thing that can reverse a judge ruling on our morality is of the legislators legislate where the country's morality is at and that is the reason the BPP is going to put off a people's referendum with the help of people who would want to see this issue rectified the way it should by way of majority of our people saying that today 2016, we do not think it's a life choice, we think it's a human right. Or today 2016, we do not think it's a human rights, we think it's a life choice. Then we can get to that second issue, whether or not we want to legislate penalties of confinement for those life choice or human rights issues that engage same sex couples."
The BPP estimates that the cost to trigger a referendum is $300,000. We'll keep following to see how far their efforts go.
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