HIPOLITO NOVELO REPORTING
On September 27, 2010, the Senate signed off on the Bill to recall elected representatives before their term expires; this is now referred to as the Recall Mechanism. This mechanism was recently put to the test by PUP’s Standard Bearer for Cayo Northeast, Orlando “Landy” Habet last year following the passport scandal involving former Minister of State in the Ministry of immigration and Area Representative for Cayo Northeast, Elvin Penner….but it failed as according to the Elections and Boundaries Department, the opposition party did not meet the required number of valid signatures from the electors in the Cayo Northeast constituency in order to trigger the Recall Mechanism.
JOSEPHINE TAMAI, Chief Elections Officer
“The total number of signatures reviewed amounted to 2002 which represented 34.4 percent of the total electors in the division; this therefore means that 2,598 or 4.4 percent were presented above the required 1,744. The total number of signatures accepted was 1,665 or 28.6 percent of the total registered electors in the electoral division.”
HIPOLITO NOVELO REPORTING
Among the 2002 signatures submitted, there were sixty one electors who signed with a thumb print or an “x” as their signature. While some of these were accepted there were three hundred and thirty seven signatures that were rejected for various reasons as the Chief Elections Officer explains.
JOSEPHINE TAMAI, Chief Elections Officer
“Fifty two because the signatures did not match; another 52 because those persons were not registered in the Cayo Northeast electoral division; another 52 signed but the persons are not registered; 11 had no signature and we had 79 petitioners who signed twice which resulted in 158 duplicate entries and we also had four petitioners who signed three times which resulted in twelve triplicate entries.”
HIPOLITO NOVELO REPORTING
In addition, one of the submissions had no name or signature and hence it was discarded and not reviewed. Tasked to review the signatures submitted, were eight senior officials of the Elections and Boundaries Department along with a number of employees. The revision took approximately one month as the documents were handed over to the Governor General on November 28 and a report was rendered to the Opposition party at the end of December 2013.
JOSEPHINE TAMAI, Chief Elections Officer
“In respect of the thumb impressions which were presented, assistance was sought from the Criminal Investigation Branch of the Police Department; they assisted with the verifications of these thumb impressions. I will also mention that as a result of these investigations, only one person did indicate that she did not sign and that is the one where you will see where you have a thumb print and you will see whereby you have the signature and it’s clear for you to see the signature and that person did indicate that she did not sign; apart from that everybody else indicated that they signed so those were accepted. On completion of the verification exercise, the accepted number of signatures did not meet the requisite 30% of the registered electors in the Cayo Northeast electoral division.”
HIPOLITO NOVELO REPORTING
The recall effort was undertaken by Habet, who in the 2012 General Election lost by a margin of 17 votes to Elvin Penner. This is the first that Belize has seen and thus garnered much attention in the political arena. Following the reported failure of this recall effort by the People’s United Party, the opposition party now alleges that there was political interference in the decision rendered by the Elections and Boundaries Department; however, Tamai assures the media and the public that that was not the case.
JOSEPHINE TAMAI, Chief Elections Officer
“I will go on record to say that there was never any interference. As I mentioned we had very senior public officers assigned to assist the department and these very senior public officers are deputies and assistant heads of departments. It really isn’t a concern because at the end of the day we are required to carry out this exercise in accordance to the Recall of Elected Representative Act; so, it doesn’t matter who the Government is or who presented the petition.”
HIPOLITO NOVELO REPORTING
Now, in addition to the bad news of failing to meet the requirement for signatures, the People’s United Party now has to deal with the fact that there is no second chance for the Recall Mechanism, at least not for the Cayo Northeast division.
JOSEPHINE TAMAI, Chief Elections Officer
“To simply answer your question, I will just read from Section 3 subsection 5 in the Act which states, ‘no petition for the Recall of a member under this Act shall be presented’ and C says, ‘more than once in the same division in any parliamentary term.’”
Reporting for Love News, I am Hipolito Novelo.
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