Government Plans to Amend Referendum Trigger Requirements After Caye Caulker Petition

The government is looking to make amendments to the current requirements as they relate to the triggering of a referendum.  Prime Minister Briceno confirmed this today, saying that the recent approved petition by Caye Caulker residents has raised some concerns that they will be addressing.

John Briceño, Prime Minister of Belize: “That is important though. What that has shown is that there is some weakness in the referendum act that it is allowing now even because of the definition of how to hold a referendum is not properly defined by geographic area like a district or by a constituency area it’s not been defined so here we have a village in effect saying that they want to have a referendum and legally we could not have stopped it. So we are going to the National Assembly next week to make sure that those things can’t happen because then you know any little village could call for a referendum for whatever it is that they want and we want to make sure we don’t do that but secondly also to ensure that if they want to have a referendum it has to be something specifically just for them that does not have national implications. For instance if Caye Caulker would want to have a referendum to limit the number of golf carts it is something that should be done, it should be allowed. But when you get to an issue like cannabis it has national implications so then we need to be able to define those nuances as to when you can have a referendum, a national or just a local referendum.”

Approved registered voters of Caye Caulker Village will be voting in the referendum set for October 8.  The referendum surrounds the legalization of marijuana, limited to the island only.