In times past, general and municipal elections were held in separate years, and, to make things even better for voters, Belize City Council and district Town Board elections were also separate.

The importance of different years for these various elections has to do with the psyche/mentality of politicians. When they are in campaign, politicians are desperate creatures. But when they are in office, most politicians become arrogant. In Belize, because the practice of public opinion polling is not well developed or respected, the only thing which brings politicians to earth is election results.

In the United States, a republican democracy which is ruled by four-year presidential terms, there are so-called mid-term elections every two years after a president is elected. These mid-term elections to choose senators and congressmen, give American voters the opportunity to comment, albeit indirectly, on the performance of whichever president/party they elected two years before.

Let us give you examples of interesting municipal election results from the past. In December of 1972, one year after the ruling PUP had shelled an NIP/UBAD coalition in Belize City Council elections, San Ignacio/Santa Elena went NIP red in Town Board elections. The NIP leaders in San Ignacio/Santa Elena were Teodosio Ochoa and Joe Andrews (both deceased). Andrews had lost the San Ignacio (Cayo North) seat to the PUP?s Hector Silva by a single vote in the 1969 general elections. In the 1971 Belize City Council elections, the People?s Development Movement (PDM), led by Dean Lindo, had openly boycotted the election. In San Ignacio 1972, it is interesting to note that the faction of UBAD which supported Lindo in the Unity Congress in 1972, was active, and successfully so, in the NIP campaigning. In 1972, the NIP was the NIP in name only, because NIP Leader, Philip Goldson was away in London studying law. So the NIP in December of 1972 was in the process of becoming the UDP, which was a process formally completed in September of 1973.

Another interesting municipal election took place in December of 1974. It was, to the best of our knowledge, the first time Belize City Council elections were held so quickly after general elections. In general elections held in late October of 1974, the PUP had defeated the new UDP by 12 seats to 6. But this was the best performance ever by a party opposed to the PUP, and not only that, of the 12 seats the PUP won, 3 of those seats had been by margins of 1 (Collet), 4 (Pickstock), and 12 (Corozal North), respectively. Belize City Council elections were held less than two months later, in December of 1974. The general election results had emboldened the UDP enough that they announced that Dean Lindo, who had won the Fort George seat over Said Musa in October 1974, was their Leader, and hence the new Leader of the Opposition. The UDP defeated the PUP 6-3 in the December 1974 BCC elections. Paul Rodriguez became the first non-PUP mayor of Belize City since electoral politics had begun in British Honduras. UDP fever began to grip Belize City and the rest of the country.

Another interesting and important municipal election took place in December of 1981, just eight months after the Heads of Agreement uprising and just three months after Belize gained independence. A state of emergency had been declared in early April of that year which was still in force when Belize gained independence five months later. We cannot say whether the state of emergency had been lifted by December, when Town Board elections were held. But the Opposition UDP, led by Dr. Theodore Aranda, who would be replaced as UDP Leader just a year later, actually won a majority of the Town Board seats in those district elections. There was only one radio station in Belize at the time, the government-controlled Radio Belize, which had been working day and night to create the impression that the PUP?s popularity was intact. The Town Boards of December 1981 gave the lie to Radio Belize propaganda.

Now to the First of March 2006. At the time of the G-7 rebellion against Ralph Fonseca?s seemingly absolute rule over the public finances of Belize, a rebellion which began on August 12, 2005, two district politicians who had been on the outside looking in because they led the Florencio Marin candidacy which opposed Said Musa at the PUP?s leadership convention in 1996, seized the opportunity to jump on the Musa bandwagon. There were Flo Marin himself ? the Corozal don, and Mike Espat of Toledo, who had been the leader of the PUP backbenchers. The voting on March 1 of 2006 in Corozal and Toledo, will give a sense of how long lasting the political gains made by Marin and Espat will be.

In Belize City itself, the two G-7 members who behaved most opportunistically on December 28 when Mark Espat and Cordel Hyde were exiled, were Godfrey Smith of Pickstock and Joe Coye of Caribbean Shores. Voting patterns on March 1 next year in these two constituencies will tell these two politicians whether their popularity has increased or decreased.

In Dangriga, area representative Sylvia Flores and mayor Cassian Nunez were 100 percent Musa/Fonseca throughout the uproar which began with G-7. On March 1 next year Dangriga voters will say whether they approve or disapprove of their position.

Margin of victory will be the key for UDP leader Dean Barrow. If the UDP does not establish a clear margin of victory next March, then Mr. Barrow?s leadership will come under serious fire from the critics and skeptics inside the party. It is noteworthy that the UDP did not hold the national convention this year which was supposed to silence the Barrow critics and skeptics. So then, it is the municipal elections in March which will be the test. A UDP defeat is unthinkable. It must be a victory, and, not only that, a resounding one.