The views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not necessarily those of Breaking Belize News.
By Jeremy A. Enriquez: Belize’s current electoral map gives Belize City 10 of the 31 seats in the House of Representatives. Yet, as of March 2025, the city had 39,649 of the country’s 206,933 registered electors: 19.16% of electors but 32.26% of seats.
The other 167,284 electors, comprising 80.84% of the total, share just 21 seats, or 67.74% of the House. A Belize City division averages 3,965 electors, while a division elsewhere in the country averages 7,966. In practical terms, one representative outside the city serves about twice as many electors as one in the city.
Consider an even sharper comparison. Belize Rural South, Cayo North, Belmopan and Stann Creek West together have 40,463 electors, slightly more than all ten Belize City divisions combined. Yet those four divisions with more electors than Belize City elect four representatives. Belize City elects ten rather than six, if the constitutional mandate was adhered to.
Belize’s Constitution states that each electoral division should have, “as nearly as may be,” an equal number of eligible voters. It also permits boundary makers to consider transport, physical features and other facilities. Those considerations matter, but the scale of this imbalance demands a public explanation and a credible plan to correct it.
This state of affairs is bigger than PUDP party politics. It strikes at the very core of our nation’s Constitution. Fair representation does not mean that any race, ethnicity, district or community should have power over another. It means that every Belizean’s voice deserves comparable weight, and that no group should have to rely on the goodwill of a more powerful one to be heard.
History shows the danger of allowing political or private elites to protect their power by weakening others’ voices. In apartheid South Africa, exclusion helped sustain dispossession and forced removals. Under white minority rule in Rhodesia, the Black majority was denied equal political power. In the United States, Jim Crow voting barriers shut many Black citizens out of decisions that governed their lives. In other countries, such as in the Caribbean, class and colourism have played a role in creating post-colonial dominance of one group over another. These histories are not a claim that Belize is the same, although centuries-old marginalized ethnicities in southern Belize have suffered the effects of discrimination and alienation from opportunities in their own country. These examples warn of the dangerous path a democracy can take when one group believes it is entitled to rule and that only they must “run things”, even if that means consistent and persistent disregard for the Supreme Law of the land they swore to uphold.
Creole, Maya, Garifuna, Mestizo, East Indian, Mennonite, Chinese and every other Belizean community have a rightful place in our democracy. No ethnicity has a lesser claim to representation; and no oligarchy has a greater claim. Let us publish the evidence, draw fair boundaries and honour the Constitution, so that government fairly represents and answers to all the people of Belize.
Figures are from the Elections and Boundaries Department’s March 2025 elector data and the calculations in your draft.
The post When 19% of electors choose 32% of the representatives, something is seriously wrong. appeared first on Belize News and Opinion on www.breakingbelizenews.com.
The views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not necessarily those of Breaking Belize News. By Jeremy A. Enriquez: Belize’s current electoral map gives Belize City 10 of the 31 seats in the House of Representatives. Yet, as of March 2025, the city had 39,649 of the country’s 206,933 registered electors:
The post When 19% of electors choose 32% of the representatives, something is seriously wrong. appeared first on Belize News and Opinion on www.breakingbelizenews.com.