Analyzing Belize’s Electoral Landscape: Safe To Swing

By Dr. Philip Castillo

For the purposes of presidential elections, of the fifty states and the District of Columbia, that comprise the United States of America, only a handful – about seven or so – are regarded as truly competitive. The implication of this is that the main political parties and candidates devote the lion’s share of their resources to campaigning in these  swing states – so called because they can literally swing an election. Victory in the majority of these states guarantees victory in the presidential elections.

Belize’s House of Representatives has 31 seats, and a pertinent question becomes how many of these seats are swing seats – that is how many of these seats are truly competitive in national elections, where the winner has to win at least sixteen of these seats to form the government.

Focus first on the safe seats. My definition of safe seat would require four indicators, which must be met simultaneously:

1. The constituency must be won by the same person for at least the past two general elections.
2. The same political party must have won the seat for at least the past two general elections.
3. The margin of victory in the most recent general elections (2020) must be greater than the margin of victory of the previous general elections (2015).
4. The margin of victory in the most recent elections (2020) must be double digits i.e. at least 10 percent or greater.

From the above, the incumbent PUP has eleven safe seats (Table 1), with the safest seat being Mr. Cordel Hyde in Lake independence.  It will be noted that the two Toledo seats are regarded as safe for the PUP. For Toledo East, the late Mr. Michael Espat was replaced by Dr Osmond Martinez who won the recent bi-election by an even larger margin. Regarding Toledo West, Mr. Oscar Requena does not strictly meet the third criteria, but he easily meets all the others.

Table 1: PUP Safe Seats

*Replaced in a bi-election with Dr. Osmond Martinez

Source: https://elections.gov.bz/general-election-results/

For the UDP, the only seat that meets all four criteria is Corozal North Mr. Hugo Patt. For Collet, Mr. Patrick Faber is in a similar situation to Mr. Oscar Requena since his victory margin in 2020 was less than in 2015. Should Mr. Faber run as a UDP in the upcoming General Elections, this seat can be considered as safe.

Table 2: UDP Safe Seats

Source: https://elections.gov.bz/general-election-results/

So then, the count is eleven safe seats for the PUP and two safe seats for the UDP for a total of 13. Should the remaining 18 seats be regarded as competitive?

No.

Pollsters and anyone for that matter who works with data know that it is always best to use the most recent data available in any modelling exercise. And the most recent data  would be the Municipal Elections held earlier this year in March. Belize has 9 urban areas and the municipal elections resulted in the incumbent PUP wining 8  while the UDP won the remaining one. In the 8 towns/cities where the PUP won, they swept all the seats, whereas in the twin towns of San Ignacio/ Santa Elena where the UDP won, there was not a complete sweep since the PUP won one seat.

In at least one of the municipal areas (Belmopan) at the municipal level, the constituency is exactly the same for the General Elections. In others such as Dangriga and Belize Rural South, the overwhelming majority of the voters at the general elections level are the same as for the municipal elections. For the Dangriga general election constituency, for example 85% of the voters are from Dangriga while the remaining 15% are from the nearby villages of Sarawee and Hope Creek. For the municipal elections, the 15% villagers do NOT vote.

In the other urban areas, San Ignacio/Santa Elena (Cayo Central & Cayo North East) , Benque Viejo (Cayo West) , Orange Walk Town ( Orange walk Central) and Corozal Town (Corozal Bay), there are also differences between the electorate at the municipal and general election  In Belize City, the issue is different. In this largest population centre are located ten of the country’s 31 constituencies. However  without information from specific polling areas, it becomes challenging to ascertain any correlation between data from the respective polling areas and the constituency level.  

To account for data from the municipal elections, a new terminology must be introduced: Lean/Likely PUP and Lean/Likely UDP. This term would be placed  in the midpoint of the continuum from Safe on the one hand to Competitive on the other extreme.

Lean/Likely can be objectively defined as follows:  

1. The same political party that won the general election (2020) must have also won the recent 2024 municipal election.
2. The percentage margin of victory in the recent 2024 municipal election must be greater than the margin of victory in the previous general elections (2020).
3. The margin of victory in the most recent elections (2020) must be double digits i.e. at least 10 percent or greater.
4. The same person who won in 2020 will again run in 2025.

Using those indicators, because of the Reasons #1, # 2 and # 3 above, Belmopan, Dangriga and Belize Rural South (which includes San Pedro Town) can be added to the Likely/Lean PUP category. For reasons #3 and #4, the Belize City constituencies of Pickstock, Fort George and Port Loyola can be added to the Lean/Likely PUP totals. For the UDP, and for the same reasons only Mesopotamia can be added. Queen Square can’t be added because a new candidate will run for the UDP in 2025. Albert can’t be added either since although there will likely be the same UDP candidate the victory margin in 2020, was the lowest of all the Belize City constituencies. The 1.19% margin of victory in Albert in 2020 makes it a very competitive seat in 2025.

The updated numbers are now as follows: Safe and Likely/Lean PUP 17. Safe and Likely/Lean UDP 3. New total 20….Are the remaining 11 seats competitive ?

I don’t know.

All the data I use are publicly available on the website of the Elections & Boundaries Dept. If detailed breakdowns are provided from specific polling areas, reasonable inferences could be made  about electoral prospects in Benque Viejo (Cayo West), Corozal Town ( Corozal Bay) and  San Ignacio/Santa Elena (Cayo Central and Cayo North East) Take out those four and likely only 7 constituencies will likely be competitive in 2025.

In a two party system, the pendulum eventually swings. Recall the national euphoria that greeted the PUP loss /UDP victory in 2008? Recall the similar euphoria that greeted the UDP loss/PUP victory in 2020? It seems to me that the pendulum swung not because of money though its importance can’t be disregarded. Nor because of policies, since the policies of both parties are largely the same. My view is that the most important reasons for the pendulum swings are candidate quality and governance deficits. Polling would have to be done to find out if these reasons will account for any pendulum swing in the 7 constituencies seats that I regard as swing seats for General Elections of 2025.

Dr. Philip J.Castillo
Assistant Professor
Faculty of Management & Social Sciences
University of Belize

 To be continued

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