How wonderful it is that the president of the National Trade Union Congress of Belize (NTUCB), the leader of the majority of employed workers, is in the Senate side of the House in Belize. Who would change that, Braa?
How wonderful it is – the UDP proposed senate. Did you sense that they had interest in the elected senate as proposed by the PUP in the House last Wednesday? Well, in its translation on the ground, the real, more power derives to the people in the UDP proposed senate than any elected senate we can design. Yap, I have the sneaks that the UDP would want to run away from their promises of an empowered senate.
I think the UDP came up with their senate proposals at a time when they were in awe of the power of the unions, and us rank and file Belizeans. There was a spirit of reform about the nation around 2005 and some politicians suffered a bout of fear, or genuine respect for the people. Hey, if you have any doubt about the tremendous power the senate the UDP proposed will hand over to the people, watch who is rushing to champion the elected senate. If you don’t know where Mr. H stands, just check out his column as he searches for truth. The man who stood for the Malaysian logging company, the December firings, and mek dem wait, is unapologetic.
Allow me to show you what the UDP gone and promised. The UDP’s reform paper says that they will reform the senate to ensure that those senators nominated by the Opposition and the non-government organizations together constitute a majority in the senate. Braa, under this proposal, NO GOVERNMENT will ever have the majority in the senate again! The leaders of non-government organizations answer to the people who put them there. The president of the NTUCB, the business community, the environmentalists, etc., these kinds of people have to have the bona fides…or they are given the heave ho by the people who elected them to their mighty posts. Come on, let’s not be jealous of these NGO’s. They are our brothers and sisters and friends. By design, they are better able to exert pressure where we need to press. And, we still vote for the Big House!
The senate the UDP proposes will have power to summon members of the Executive, CEO’s, and Heads of Departments on a routine basis in order to consider in a regular, continuing, open fashion the policies, operations and spending practices of all departments of government. Braa, very big people in Belize will have to walk the chalk line from then on…Or else.
There is more. Committees of the senate will issue periodic name and shame reports to provide the basis for legal and political action. Braa, no popularity contest will produce a senate as powerful as this.
What was the UDP thinking to offer that sweet senate proposal? No, it is not perfect, but the president of the senate will never again hold the automatic. Former Senator Anthony Chanona can now vote for his party if he wants to without sweating that he will be voting in a bogus law. Ditto former Senator Ambrose Tillett.
The present senate is a vast improvement over the old. It is the product of the hard work of Godwin Hulse and civil society, plus a side of the PUP trying to be progressive (remember they allowed broadcasts too). Of course, they (the PUP) couldn’t let go of the reins completely, so they set a president to keep the golden ballot. The senate proposed by the UDP, yap, takes away the golden ballot, gives it to the people, and increases the power of the senate.
The PUP could have one-upped the UDP proposal by going the whole hog, yap, they could have come hat in hand to NMP leader (the defunct National Meritocratic Party’s SS) and, for a token, purchase his model and set the UDP on their heels. Of course, the PUP is wily enough to know that “free paper bon” when the president loses the golden ballot, so, elected senate. And we have to feel that a whole lot a UDP would want to bite into that new thing.
I sense that the “other” folk who are clamoring for the elected senate are comparing that fish with the pre-2003 senate. We are on the road to the perfect model – great men and great women fought for this thing. We will be hard pressed to find an elected senate model to compare with this Belizean creation. And nations trying to find their way on the right path will copy us! For once, Belize, let us lead the world.
Unfinished story
Remind me, God spare life, to finish this story after the general elections. My late old aunt (grandaunt) Gladys came down from States for Christmas one time. Now, dehn time deh I mi small an I mi think that States people were some kind of superior beings, what with their big box and that smell of richness on their clothing and so. Well, I was to learn very quickly that States people, well that da just hype.
My Aunt Gladys loved eating chocolates and she wasn’t ashamed of, or couldn’t hold back the ehm flatulence. Chocolate taste nice but the pum smell really bad! But, that is just background, filler, previews of the story which a want to finish…after the elections. Our family had a little puppy, named Galsho. Our puppy was a house patlika. When bedtime, we put him out to sleep on our verandah.
Well, Aunt Gladys comes home one night after visiting with her old faamli and frenz and bam, she stepped into something squishy…and very smelly. We must have been on some real extracurricular rowdy business inside (maybe story telling) that we didn’t hear little Galsho whining to go downstairs. We heard Aunt Gladys scream. Then we heard our precious little pooch scream. We all rushed to the verandah. Only the tail of little Galsho could be seen. Aunt Gladys had him by the scruff of the neck, and she was rubbing his nose, no, scrubbing his nose in his blank, and cussing him up real bad.
Our dog, he lived in terror of her until she caught her plane back to New York. He would go trembling to a corner whenever Aunt Gladys was around. I was upset with Aunt Gladys for her cruelty (you can raise the case posthumously, animal rights activists) and after that episode States people were down a peg, would never have the same status in my heart. I didn’t have it in for her for long though, because she really was a kind person. And also, although little Galsho continued sleeping on the verandah, I never, ever had to clean up dog poop again.