By Dylan Vernon, TIME COME #17, 4 December 2024.

A curious thing happened when I applied in July 2024 to transfer my voter registration to the constituency of my current residence. As I was leaving the elections office, a woman in the waiting area demanded a copy of my receipt and proceeded to fire off personal questions. I had seen her do the same thing to other people who provided the requested information – ostensible thinking it was all official. It took me a few seconds to realise something was off. I asked her if this was an official part of the transfer process, and she answered ‘yes’ without hesitation. I asked the registering officer if this was true, and the answer was a quiet but clear ‘no’. The woman was actually a paid partisan operative, one of many in every division nationwide collecting transfer and registration data on voters. The blatant deception really ticked me off. More substantively, it reminded me of the deep-rooted fraud of illicit voter transfers that pollutes Belize’s electoral democracy every summer. Prime Minister John Briceño refers to it as a ‘can of worms’ that no party wants to open.

 The Voter Transfer Game

Registered voters who move residence to another electoral division within Belize are required by the Representation of the People Act to officially transfer to the new division after two months of residence there.… Read the rest...

By Dylan Vernon, TIME COME #16, 20 November 2024.

On 12 November 2024, the House of Representatives passed a Bill to extend the tenure of the People’s Constitution Commission (PCC) in Belize by six months. Unlike the first six-month extension in May 2024, which was contemplated under the PCC Act, this second extension required an amendment to the Act by the National Assembly. Senate approval is highly likely. Launched in November 2022, the PCC reached its two-year mark in mid-November 2024, and it will now have until May 2025 to complete its mandate to recommend a new or reformed constitution for Belize. Officially requested by the PCC, this latest extension begs basic questions: Why the need for an extension? What has been accomplished so far? And how will the PCC really use this additional time?

Why an Extension Needed?

Because public information on the recent work of the Commission has been sparse, such questions can only be fully addressed by the PCC itself. Indeed, the people of Belize deserve a full update on the current status of the process and on the plan going forward. Having been a keen observer of PCC activities and having attended a recent (internal) update session hosted by one of the institutions represented on the PCC, I will share a few emerging insights on the PCC process thus far.… Read the rest...

By Dylan Vernon, TIME COME #15, 21 October 2024.

For this TIME COME, I share a presentation I made at the Annual State of the Nation Lecture of the University of Belize. It took place on Wednesday, September 18, 2024, at the UB Jaguar Auditorium in Belmopan under the theme “Fires, Floods & Hurricanes: How Do We Cope?” The audience was mostly UB students but also a national audience could tune in by live streaming. Here is the talk I gave:

All Around Us

When I left my home (a block from the sea) in Belize City this morning, I met climate change right outside my door. I had to manoeuvre through about a foot of tidal sea water – which has been higher and higher each year around this time. I think most Belizeans have experienced or heard about some climate change story like that. Many, for example, have heard of the plight of Monkey River village.

Some of you may be asking what a is a political scientist doing on a panel discussing climate change. Think about it like this: When we build hurricane shelters, we strive to make them resilient to Category 5 storms. These may not come often or at all or hit everywhere, but we must prepare for them.… Read the rest...

By Dylan Vernon, Time Come (special) #14, 8 October 2024.

Yesterday, on the anniversary of 7 October 2023 that sparked the worst phase of the resistance to the Israeli occupation of Palestine since the Nakba, I re-read my post on Palestine of 25 October 2023. I had titled it “Campaign of Genocide in Palestine: Why Belizeans Should Care.” At that time 5,791 Palestinians had been killed by Israeli bombardment. Today the number killed is seven times that: over 41,000,

However, while much has changed in these twelve months in terms of deaths, injuries, the deepening of the genocide, the utter destruction of Gaza and the expansion of the war by Israel, much has also remained the same. This is because the actions of Israel since 7 October, 2023 have only been an escalation of its 76 years of occupying Palestine, taking more Palestinian land, expelling more Palestinian people, apartheid and genocide. Nations in the West continue to be complicit. The images and the numbers are horrific and our hearts ache for humanity.

After Hamas killed 1,139 Israelis and took 251 as hostages on that October 7, Israel has since killed 41,909 Palestinians of whom 16,891 are children, injured over 97,000 others, killed 174 journalists and 222 UN staff with impunity.… Read the rest...

By Dylan Vernon, TIME COME #13, 25 September 2024, Belize City, Belize.

Twenty-nine posts later, TIME COME will be one year old this Sunday, 29th September. I am using the occasion, to re-post my very first and launch article of 29 September 2023, mostly for new subscribers and viewers. (Don’t buy 29 in the Boledo). Having put little effort in marketing, I appreciate that readership has grown steadily, especially over the past six months. I was a bit surprised that the most viewed post, by far, was my immediate last one: Septemba Kanfyoozhan: Rethinking the 10th. Maybe it was re-shared widely by both the ‘yays and the nays’. Maybe it was because it is September — the month during which so many of Belize’s major political historical events, both triumphant and dispiriting, have happened. Among the latter was the death of George Price, Father of the Nation, on 19 September 2011. Another happened 55 years before that when Price was at the pinnacle of his early career in 1956.

In my first TIME COME article, I omitted one of the most consequential September dates in the history of the nationalist movement: 27 September 1956. On this deflating day, the last three of the ‘big four’ nationalist leaders, and founders of the People’s United Party (PUP) split apart for good: George Price, Philip Goldson and Leigh Richardson.… Read the rest...