The debate of the national budget hit a high note in Parliament on Friday afternoon, when Orange Walk East area representative Marcel Cardona took unrestrained aims at not just the proposed budget of $953 million in payouts—but also at the leader of his party, Prime Minister Dean Barrow, and Barrow’s deputy, Orange Walk North area representative Gaspar “Gapi” Vega, who Cardona blamed for the unfair treatment of, and gross injustice against, Orange Walk East constituents.
“I expected him to do something like that, but he went beyond anticipation. I did not believe he would engage in a full-scale assault,” Prime Minister Barrow told Amandala on Monday.
Barrow said that Cardona’s “outburst” in the National Assembly, “makes him a fit candidate for formal expulsion” from the ruling United Democratic Party—but officials of the party are expected to make a decision on Cardona’s fate shortly, he added.
“We are tired of being treated like lepers or sub-humans, like if we don’t have the same rights and privileges as any other Belizean citizen,” said Cardona in the House debate Friday, although, he said, the Prime Minister has attempted to convince Belizeans that this is an egalitarian government, meaning a government which advocates equal rights for all.
“Orange Walk East is being left out once again and this, this is no mere coincidence,” said Cardona.
He also complained that unemployment in his constituency is at an all-time high—a perfect breeding condition for crime and violence in the area, he said.
For his part, Barrow told Amandala Monday that it is a case of “sour grapes,” because Cardona’s political career with the UDP is finished.
“He has been fired from Cabinet and while allowed to contest for [the party’s divisional] convention, he came dead last. He is basically a lame duck representative,” said Barrow.
“Going forward, I am not quite sure what we are going to do with him,” Barrow added, saying Cardona should just walk. “He is now prepared to speak out against the UDP, so walk,” Barrow commented.
Cardona says, however, that he intends to continue serving out his 5-year term of office, due to expire in 2013.
While he praised Education Minister Patrick Faber for providing financial assistance to constituents for education at Friday’s budget debate, Cardona chided Deputy Prime Minister Vega over what he alleged to be unfair land distribution in the district.
Cardona claimed that his pleas to have more lands available for constituents have been ignored. He accused Vega, the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment, under whose portfolio Lands falls, of being selfish and greedy in looking out for his own political interests in Orange Walk North.
Cardona said that three years of lobbying “bore no fruit;” yet, Cardona alleges, one week after the Sunday, December 12, 2010 convention in Orange Walk East, when he was handily defeated by Orlando Burns, Burns became the de facto area representative and is being allowed to exercise powers he, Cardona, should be exercising in the distribution of lands.
Cardona said that he, the constitutionally elected area representative, continues to be denied the right to distribute lands already surveyed and available house lots; or to participate in new land distribution.
When we asked Prime Minister Barrow about this complaint, he said that whereas he could not confirm that Burns has eclipsed Cardona in this fashion, he would not disapprove. Barrow said, “…that would not surprise me that, in fact, in terms of which recommendation the minister [Vega] would consider…it would be from Burns… The fact is he [Cardona] is finished.”
Cardona, said Barrow, is area representative only in name, partially because the party does not want him.
“He comes to no UDP party or caucus meeting, and when the question of resource allocation came up, [Cardona] refused to come,” said Barrow.
The Orange Walk East area representative said that there has been “a deliberate and orchestrated plan to remove him” as area representative for Orange Walk East.
Politics, said Cardona, is about the effective delivery of goods and services, and if an area representative is not delivering, the people will look elsewhere to someone who is delivering.
This is not the first time Cardona has come out with criticism of the national budget while in the ruling party—but this was the first time he unleashed his full fury.
“The shock value he was able to achieve on Friday, he will not be able to achieve again,” said Barrow.
At the reading of Barrow’s second budget in March 2009, Cardona alleged that his constituents continued to be denied access to and use of valuable parcels of residential lots in Carmelita Village, which had already been surveyed.
“For over one year not a single parcel of land has been distributed by myself in the Orange Walk East constituency. Why?” Cardona had questioned in March 2009.
Two years ago, he also pleaded for a new high school for his constituency, new health facilities and better roads, including sugar roads.
On Friday, Cardona reiterated those concerns for the villages in his constituency:“Where in this budget is provision being made for Government’s much-needed investment in the establishment of an Orange Walk East High School, to meet the educational needs of the young people of Louisiana, Pasadita/Dr. George Estate, Palmar, Chan Pine Ridge, Tower Hill, Carmelita, Santa Martha, and even surrounding communities such as Guinea Grass, Yo Creek, San Antonio, Santa Cruz, August Pine Ridge, San Lazaro, and San Felipe?” he questioned.
Cardona said that his constituents have been suffering at the hands of the highest ranking officials of the administration, and there is only so much people can take, no matter how humble, before they rebel.
The Orange Walk East area representative prepared a speech of over 8,000 words. In it, he assured that he would not resign from the UDP or from his seat as an elected UDP representative in the House.
Cardona, a former Senator for the UDP, while the party was in Opposition, said that notwithstanding the PUP tradition of his family, Barrow invited him into the ranks of the UDP back in 2003, to rid government of those who were not serving the interests of the people.
As to the reason for the fallout, Barrow said, “I had, in the reshuffle [March 2009], removed him from Cabinet. He was upset from then, and he always had a personal beef with the Deputy Prime Minister. The last straw was his loss in the convention,” said Barrow. “The Deputy Prime Minister campaigned openly for Burns. That caused him [Cardona] to go off.”
Barrow said that while he did not hear the comments from Cardona himself, as there were times he could not hear his comments in the House about the budget, because of commotion in the galleries, someone told him that Cardona had said something to the effect that he was apologizing to former Prime Minister Said Musa.
In the written version of Cardona’s speech, from which he partially read in the House, he noted that Musa was a personal friend of his father, Francisco “Paco” Cardona, and because of “injustices” and “duplicity” he alleges have been meted out against him by the Barrow administration, he is now left to wonder whether his public attacks against Mister Musa were “a horrible mistake.”
In March 2009, Cardona was sacked from Cabinet, and he blamed Vega for instigating it. Cardona’s firing came after conflict with the Barrow administration over a contract awarded by the National Institute of Culture and History (NICH), under NICH president Diane Haylock, to entrepreneur David Gegg, without Cardona’s knowledge, even though he was the minister with the Culture portfolio at the time.
In late 2008, Cardona publicly opposed the manner in which the contract was awarded, although Gegg had maintained that the deal was entirely above-board.
Cardona now fears that attempts will be made to remove him from his seat if he appears to have crossed the floor in Parliament. For this reason, he has explained, he abstained from voting on the budget. Sustained voting against policies of the party under which he was elected would indicate Cardona has “crossed the floor,” and would be cause for removal from Parliament. Cardona has said that he intends to stay seated until the term of this Parliament ends.
If the UDP expels him, said Barrow, and Cardona continues to denounce his administration, then he won’t be able to claim he is doing so under the UDP banner.