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P.M. Says Yes To Elections On March 7th But No To Referendum On Offshore Drilling
Written by CTV3 Publisher Wednesday, 01 February 2012 03:50
Today during his press conference the Prime Minister also announced that the referendum on offshore drilling will in no way be held on March 7th.
Honorable Dean Barrow- Prime Minister of Belize
“My examination of the law tells me that it can’t, as far as I know these signatures were obtained a long time ago it appears that the decision not to present them to the chief elections officer for verification was taken so that the timing might allow for this referendum to occur on the same day as the municipal elections, from what I have seen they got it wrong, the referendum petition, the list of signatures was presented as I recall on the 9th of December two months for that for the completion of the exercise would be the 9th of February, I think where the confusion arose, I may be wrong, I am not part of their councils but I suspect that because the law says after the verification the Governor General has 30 days within which to issue the referendum writ, they thought somehow that would make it possible for the referendum writ to be issued for the 7th of March but what the law says is that the Governor General issues the referendum writ within 30 days and in that writ fixes the actual date of the referendum which can’t be before 30 days after the issue of the writ, so there is no way on earth if the Governor General is to follow the law and we know the Governor General will do that, that they can have the referendum on the 7th of March, I assume of course that they verification exercise, tha the chief elections officer is doing will in fact establish that the valid number of signature meets the require threshold.”
In speaking on the referendum, the Prime Minister announced that yesterday he received a letter from Ocean’s Vice President Audrey Matura Shepherd demanding that the National Assembly declare that the referendum on offshore drilling be conducted on March 7th. According to the PM and we quote, “It took some gal for the suggestion to be made.” End quote
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