I would say that less than a month ago, Hon. Michael Finnegan did two television interviews a few days apart. One was with Nuri Muhammad at XTV/KREM Radio on a Friday morning, and the other was the following Wednesday night with Jules Vasquez on Channel 7.

I think it was in the Nuri Muhammad interview that Finnegan revealed that Rt. Hon. Dean Barrow, following the landslide defeat in March of 2003 of the United Democratic Party (UDP) he was leading, attempted to resign the leadership he had inherited from Dr. Manuel Esquivel following the UDP’s massive defeat in the August 1998 general election. The leaders of the UDP unanimously rejected Mr. Barrow’s attempt to resign in 2003, and the rest is history. He went on to lead the UDP to three consecutive general election victories in 2008, 2012, and 2015.

My point is that the UDP was quite weak in 2003 post-election, and when they tried to demonstrate against corruption by the ruling People’s United Party (PUP) in February of 2004, that demonstration was not impressive.

But, five months later, raging corruption at the Social Security Board and the Development Finance Corporation sparked rebellion by 7 Ministers in the Said Musa Cabinet, the stated purpose of the rebellion being to remove the late Ralph Fonseca from absolute control of government finances. PUP insiders can tell you that Fonseca was so powerful that there were some in the party who gave him the name, “God.”

The unions of Belize jumped on the so-called G-7 uprising, and the Barrow-led UDP “piggybacked” on the union push, so that a gigantic demonstration against the PUP took place in Belize City a couple weeks after the G-7 rejection of Fonseca’s power and policies in August of 2004.

The similarities between 2003/2004 and 2025 are obvious. The PUP won a second consecutive term, as they had done in March of 2003, in March of this year, and we have quickly begun to see increased disapproval energy from the unions following the revelation of several questionable deals by the new government.

The clear difference between 2003/2004 and 2025 is that there is an almost complete lack of substance in the Opposition UDP. In 2003/2004, the UDP was weak until G-7 and the unions; in 2025, the UDP leaders are at each other’s throats, and they have been there for many, many months. The UDP is in shambles.

The system of parliamentary democracy works best when there is a healthy, organized Opposition to keep the government in check. There is no such Opposition in Belize today. In a situation like the present one, the burden of proof, so to speak, falls on the unions and on the media.

In this column, I want to focus on the unions. In February of 2005, there was an extraordinary situation which arose when the unions were about to stage a national demonstration. Assad Shoman flew in from Cuba and succeeded in drawing the venom from the fangs of the unions, the most powerful of which no doubt was the Belize National Teachers Union (BNTU). The story of this historic, incredible effort by Shoman has never been told. All we know is that George Frazer and Anthony Fuentes of the BNTU may have been the most powerful union leaders at the time. Dylan Reneau of the National Trade Union Congress of Belize (NTUCB) was also very, very powerful. 

Today, the two most powerful union leaders are no doubt Nadia Caliz of the BNTU and Dean Flowers of the Public Service Union (PSU). Flowers’ charisma and ability to articulate are impressive, but my feeling is that his organization is a distance away from being as strong as the BNTU.

You will have noted that the Police Department, under the leadership of the new Commissioner of Police, Dr. Richard Rosado, quickly withdrew some assault charges against eleven teachers which arose out of a confrontation with the police when the teachers used their vehicles to block the highway which leads west and south out of Dangriga. At about exactly the same time, however, Dr. Rosado and Dean Flowers have become entangled in a public, personal vendetta.

This is not good for Dean. It becomes important for his ability to maneuver that the UDP steps into the breach they are constitutionally mandated to fill when the UDP National Party Council meets this coming Saturday. What this “constitutionally mandated” verbiage means is that somehow the UDP has to heal its internal wounds. If it does not do so, then Dean Flowers will experience a degree of isolation which will make the pressure on him almost unbearable.

All this column is, is the personal opinion of one who has seen something similar to the present situation unfold more than a quarter of a century ago. In other words, you can take it or leave it.

Power to the people.