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By Wellington C. Ramos

Last week the People’s United Party in Belize selected Yolanda Shakron, a political activist, to replace Honorable Cordel Hyde in the Lake Independence constituency, after he declined to seek a third term. Since she was selected, rumours began to surface in the press that she was born in Guatemala and she also possesses a passport as a naturalized United States citizen.

Born in Dangriga Town, the cultural capital of Belize, Wellington Ramos has BAs in Political Science and History from Hunter College, NY, and an MA in Urban Studies from Long Island University. He is an Adjunct Professor of Political Science and History

Section 51 (1) (a) of the Belize Constitution states that “no person shall be qualified to be elected as a member of the House of Representatives, who is by virtue of his own act, under any acknowledgement of allegiance obedience or adherence to a foreign power or State.” This is the first out of a total of eight disqualification clauses under the constitution.

Section 57 states that any person who is a citizen of Belize whether he or she is a natural born or became a naturalized Belizean citizen 18 years or older, who has resided in Belize for one year or more is qualified to seek political office in Belize. This provision qualifies a person who was not born in Belize to become a member of the House of Representatives, Senate and Prime Minister of the country. Yet, it also disqualifies a natural born Belizean citizen from qualifying for any of those positions once he or she becomes a naturalized citizen of another country.

Outside of the country of Belize there is almost the same amount of Belizean citizens living in the United States and their children and offspring were born there. Belize has citizenship by descent, which means that if they want to run for any of these offices they will be qualified to do so and still maintain their United States citizenships. Under this current constitution, there is no respect given to natural born Belizean citizens and in my opinion that is unconstitutional because in the United States and many other countries, they are given more rights than naturalized citizens.

In 2009, the current Prime Minister of Belize, the Right Honorable Dean Barrow, proposed an Article 7 amendment to the Belize constitution to clear up this ambiguity. The People’s United Party was vehemently opposed to this amendment and rallied their people at all the consultation hearings to voice their opposition to it. Due to the pressure the prime minister received from them, he later withdrew the amendment. I still believe that the amendment would have passed because the UDP had a majority of 26-5 in the House of Representatives to approve it.

Most Belizeans living in the United States were disappointed when he withdrew this amendment. He promised to re-introduce the amendment at a later date but that never did happen. Most Belizeans living in the United States support the United Democratic Party because that was the party that gave them dual citizenship after it was taken away by the People’s United Party when Belize became independent on September 21, 1981. If the UDP amend this constitution, Belizean Americans will never forget this favour and most of their children and grandchildren will remain UDP supporters for the indefinite future.

Last week, Yolanda Shakron made an attempt to go and register as the PUP candidate for Lake Independence but her candidacy was rejected by the Returning Officer Noreen Fairweather. After the rejection, they went to the Supreme Court with their lawyers but they too rejected her candidacy.

Any smart lawyer should have known that when it comes to meeting the “qualifications to become a candidate” the only thing the returning officer needed to see was the proof that she is no longer a United States citizen and the constitutional requirement would have been fulfilled. All the publicity exercise was a complete waste of time.

If they had allowed the United Democratic Party to proceed with the 7th Amendment, they would not be in this situation now. I think that all the political parties should support this amendment because it is to the benefit of our country and leaving the situation as it is benefits foreigners over natural born Belizean citizens.

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Carl Rpss:
I tend to agree. The pool of good qualified candidates to run for elective office is so small in a county like Belize, the law should be as inclusive as possible. The bigger the pool of possible candidates, the better.

Marisol :
Just a note: Cordel Hyde would have been seeking a 4th term if he had chosen to run...