New Town Boundaries Will Shape 2027 Municipal Vote

The Elections and Boundaries Department is getting a head start on the next municipal elections because for the first time, Belizeans will be voting under new town boundaries. And while the changes are small, they matter. Some neighborhoods are now officially outside town limits, while a few nearby villages have been pulled in. So today, officers hit the ground in San Ignacio, Santa Elena, and Benque, mapping out those shifts to make sure every voter ends up in the right municipality. The goal, according to Chief Elections Officer Josephine Tamai, is an accurate voters list, and a smoother path to the 2027 municipal polls.

 

Josephine Tamai, Chief Elections Officer

“Today, for the Elections and Boundaries Department, we started the presentations from our different offices, in terms of preparing for municipal elections. We all know that next year we’ll have municipal elections and this is the first time that we will go into these elections with the new town boundaries. I am certain that some people may not realize that since April 1^st, 2025, there were some changes made to the town boundaries. And so, the statutory instruments have been passed and now at the Elections and Boundaries Department, our responsibility is to ensure that persons are placed in the respective municipalities. There are not much changes and I will say that when it comes to the change that we will be seeing, it will be very minimal in most cases. We have some areas whereby some parts of town are no longer within the town boundaries, or within the town limits, and also now we have some villages that were not a part of the town, but now, legally, they are in these towns. And so, these preparations are now currently being made so that we ensure that we have an accurate voters list when it comes to the Municipal Elections coming 2027. We have these maps that are being done for each of the municipalities that we have and so the ones that we are doing today are basically for the San Ignacio, Santa Elena, and the Benque municipalities. So officers, like I mentioned, were out doing their groundwork, making sure that we capture or familiarize ourselves with the new boundaries to make the changes for persons who either need to vote in town or who will no longer vote in town.”

 

Tamai says the real work now is making sure every voter ends up exactly where they belong on Election Day, as the new boundaries take shape ahead of 2027.

 

 

Attention readers: This online newscast is a direct transcript of our evening television broadcast. When speakers use Kriol, we have carefully rendered their words using a standard spelling system.

 

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