From crime to the International Court of Justice….The I.C.J. referendum to be conducted on April tenth is now knocking at the front door. It is only three months away. Belizeans will either vote yes or no to take the Guatemalan claim to The Hague or not vote at all. These are the three options on the table that were asked in a recent poll carried out by the government and the results made available in December 2018. Actually, it is second such poll commissioned; the first was in August 2018.

The survey was carried out nationwide via telephone by poll Belize dot org and the questions and sample were the same as the August poll. Now to the results: the overall result is for a 'NO' vote. The poll shows that the 'NO' vote has increased significantly since the August poll and now, thirty-seven percent say 'NO,' up by twelve percent when compared to the initial poll. As to the 'YES' vote, thirty-percent agreed, which is down by four percent from August. In respect of other findings, the highest percent of 'NO' votes is within the oldest age group, sixty-five years plus.� P>The age group of fifty-five to six-four years recorded the highest proportion of 'Undecided.'� The poll found that the highest proportions of those who will not vote are among persons between forty-five to fifty-four years. The highest proportion of 'YES' votes was found to be in those fifty-five to sixty-four years. As it relates to gender, forty point six percent of females would vote 'NO' compared to a thirty-three point six percent of males.� Twenty-one percent of both males and females were 'Undecided.'

It no secret that the Toledo District has the highest number of voters to say 'NO,' while the Orange Walk and Stann Creek Districts lean towards a 'YES' vote. Stann Creek, however, is the district with the highest 'Undecided' vote. There are other interesting results which we will report on in subsequent newscasts.

Channel 5