7 News Belize

Mayor Says Phantom Voters Didn’t Account for His Landslide
posted (January 31, 2017)
And we also got the chance to ask the mayor about re-registration. His UDP party comfortably controls six of the ten seats in the city, and it is widely believed that the collective constituency strength of the UDP is what has carried Bradley and his council to two landslide victories. And within those constituencies there are lots of phantom voters; people who don't live in the constituency but who are registered there. They are the voters who would be weeded out in a re-registration. Now, with the government saying that it will have a re-registration after the municipal elections, we asked Mayor Bradley if he hasn't benefitted from the bloated voters list:...

Darrell Bradley, Mayor - Belize City
"Well I don't want to make any comment on that. Because a re-registration exercise is an exercise which involves a tremendous amount of analysis and labor. So that re-registration exercises are required by law at certain intervals, but one of the reasons why the law places intervals on them is because of a recognition of the inherent difficulties in doing that."

"You rightly pointed out that municipal elections are very much within our sight. You are looking a little over a year. I don't want there to be any kind hurry circumstances. So that I wouldn't want to give a commandeer, because they may be practical limitations which I myself do not see why that kind of exercise cannot be done within the little over a year period."

Jules Vasquez, 7News
"Phantom voters - you have been elected twice based on this strong support in the city from those phantom voters."

Darrell Bradley, Mayor - Belize City
"My response to this is twofold: 1) we have been elected twice on landslide victories within the city because of performance. So that I will stand here on my record, including on that audit report that you have right in your hand that you are questioning me on. The reason why we are been successful twice is not anything about any voter this or voter that. It is because of performance."

"The second reason why your assessment is flawed is because it will affect mainly a constituency basis. So that within re-registering exercise, there may be shifts in voters between Freetown and Caribbean Shores. They may be shifts in terms of Albert and Fort George. But all of those people vote for me or for another party on a municipal election."

"So whether or not a person lives in Lake I or lives on the North Side, it doesn't affect anyone for a re-registering exercise."

"While those people will move and while they would be a different electoral division, they will nonetheless still be in the jurisdiction of Belize City and they would still have the pleasure of voting for Darrell Bradley in the next municipal election."

Jules Vasquez, 7News
"So you are announcing now that you are running again in the next municipal election?"

Darrell Bradley, Mayor - Belize City
"Well I am here and we are doing work so I mean..."

We spoke with Doug Singh, the Chairman of Elections and Boundaries Commission, and he confirmed that indeed there was a meeting today to consider 3 agenda items. There will be a redistricting exercise and a re-registration exercise, but re-registration will take place in 2018. The redistricting exercise is also very important because there is a great disparity between the size of the constituencies countrywide.

Singh told us that while everybody agrees that both must and will happen, but there is a disagreement between which should go first. He explained to us that the reason it makes better sense to postpone is because the trends show that people come in to register when they are preparing to vote in a general election. He said that because there is no urgency, the entire population of voters, over 198 thousand, will not mobilize in the numbers needed to legitimize the redistricting, and the list will be compromised. He said that for that very same reason, it is more prudent do the redistricting first, to properly divide up the constituencies to bring them into equivalency. He said that the Opposition Leader and senior members of the party have been briefed on this and they appeared to accept it.

When we asked him about the voter fraud concern, he said while he shares that concern, cleaning up the voter's list is not something that Elections and Boundaries can do unless the nationality certificates are revoked for persons who did not qualify to receive them. He pointed out that if those persons came to the Elections and Boundaries office to re-register, they would still have to accept their documents and put them back on the voters list. He said that it would have to be a Central Government Decision to revoke these nationalities, and only then will the Elections and Boundaries be able to remove these people.

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