It's coming up on 21 since Belize hasn't undergone a re-registration exercise. And because of that everyone in politics knows that that the voter's list is bloated with phantom voters and persons who are deceased or have migrated.
That mess became even more ominous last week when Former Immigration Director Ruth Meighan agreed in the Senate Hearings on Immigration that the rush up to the 2012 General Election, there was nationality fraud, which transferred over to voter fraud. That has only serve to strengthen the PUP's conviction that re-registration must happen soon, and one is due at the beginning of July.
But, the first hint that the re-registration would be postponed a third time came last year August from the Prime Minister. Here's how he put it then:
Well, since then, the Elections and Boundaries Commission has had some time to give it greater consideration, and they're agreeing with the Prime Minister that it should take place after the 2018 Municipal Elections. They're receiving immediate backlash on that decision from the PUP, who fired off a press release today, while a meeting to finalize this decision was still ongoing.
Their statement, says, "The People's United Party condemns this decision as a blatant act of political convenience when the national interests and the preservation of our democracy demand that we update our outdated, padded and illegal electoral rolls."
This evening, Kareem Musa, the party's spokesperson for this issue, granted us an interview explaining in greater detail why the party insists on July:
Hon. Kareem Musa, Area Rep., Caribbean Shores
"The re-registration exercise it's something that we've been waiting for, for a very long time. The last re-registration exercise took place in 1997. So it has been 20 years now that we have not had an updating of our electoral roles in this country."
"In 2008, the political parties at that time thought that, because at first it was due in 2007 - in 10 years after the first re-registration in 1997. The political parties decided that we should put off the re-registration exercise until 2012, because there was a general election that was going to take place in 2008."
"So the excuse given at that time was that there was an election coming up and it would not make any sense because of the proximity of that general election to carry out a re-registration exercise. Fine. That is acceptable and again in 2012, because they postponed it for 5 years. 2012 as you may recall, we had another general election. So it did not make any sense to update our electoral roles at a time so close to the general elections."
"Now, fast forward to 2017. We just had a general election last year. Which means that we have another 4 years until the next general election. So it is the opportune time to carry out a re-registration exercise that has been long overdue in this country."
"If you may recall, I believe it was August of last year in the House of Representatives I asked the Prime Minister the question "are you going to follow the law and have a re-registration exercise come July 1st 2017?" That was the first occasion that we received a hint from the Prime Minister of the government's intention to once again put off this very important re-registration exercise. He informed us in the house and informed the nation that he would be putting it off until after the municipal election and if you look back into your archives, the reason that the Prime Minister said why they are not going to be carrying out the re-registration exercise is because we are so far away from a general election."
"So, remember on the two previous occasions it was agreed not to have a re-registration because we are too close to an election. Now the Prime Minister is trying to argue which in my opinion respectfully makes absolutely no sense that we cannot have a re-registration now, because we are so far away from a general election."
"So the first point that we as a mass party want to place on record is that we are not in agreement with their proposal. Not at all. We actually condemned their proposal to put off the re-registration exercise once again and I want to place on record that if necessary we are going to challenge it in a court of law. Because this process, this delaying of this re-registration exercise, especially given the confessions made by the former director of immigration Ruth Meighan last week in the senate select inquiry, where she said that the 2012 elections - those results are fraudulent. I don't think she used those words, but of you put the pieces together, what she said was that there are so many unqualified immigrants who received nationality and they are all pointed to in the auditor general's report and not only did they received nationality illegally, but by extension they made it on to our voters' roles."
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