At the dusk of closely fought, historic elections on Thursday, May 6, in the United Kingdom, a European territory consisting of England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, it appears that David Cameroon’s Conservative political party backed by British billionaire, Michael Ashcroft, who makes a substantial amount of his fortune in Belize, will emerge ahead of Gordon Brown’s incumbent Labour Party, based on exit polls and preliminary results coming hours after the close of polls.
“This is the most exciting election I can ever remember,” the British High Commission resident in Belize, Patrick Ashworth, told Amandala Thursday. “There are three parties with a good chance of making a big breakthrough. For the past 25 years, you more or less know which party is going to win [going into the elections]. This is the first time we really don’t know.”
Belize Prime Minister Dean Barrow, whose administration has been embroiled in a tangle of legal battles with the Tory party financier, Ashcroft, has been watching the elections very closely and had read the Thursday evening BBC news report that signaled that the Tories’ Conservative party was likely to win the most seats, but fall short of having an absolute majority of at least 326. If the preliminary numbers hold true, a coalition government would emerge.
The race is really between the Conservative Party, the Opposition, and the Labour Party, the ruling party. The third party, the Liberal Democrats is expected to net far less votes, though enough to form a coalition government with the Tories.
The elections are far more massive in the UK than in Belize, with over 15,000 candidates.
Leading up to the elections, Ashcroft’s wealth and tax status was the subject of much probing and debate in the UK press. British press reports claim that a substantial amount of Ashcroft’s money, on which he reportedly pays no personal taxes in Belize and enjoys major tax breaks in the UK because of his “non-domicile” status, was channeled into financing the winning Conservatives; some say much of the funds repatriated from Belize, including BZ$70 million in 2008 from Belize Telemedia Limited (BTL), very likely found its way into that political cash pool.
As regards the implications of a Tory party win for his administration, given the Barrow administration’s present legal tussles with Ashcroft, Barrow declined to comment on what he anticipates the road ahead would be like for Belize.
Prime Minister Barrow told Amandala Thursday that it has been a while since there has been a hung parliament in the UK, and the last time it happened, the alliance did not last more than a year, forcing the government to go back to the polls, to have fresh elections.
ABC News reports that according to exit polls, the country would be headed to its first hung parliament (coalition government) since 1974.
Barrow noted that even though the pre-election opinion polls were indicating that the third party had surged in the polls, this apparently did not translate to serious gains on voting day.
British High Commissioner Ashworth noted that the voting had concluded at 10 p.m. UK time, which was 3:00 p.m. Belize time. (According to UK press reports, several voters excluded after the close of polls were understandably angry that they had been turned away.)
Ashworth – like most ex-pats outside the UK and the 1,000 living in Belize – chose the postal vote rather than the proxy vote to cast his absentee ballot.
Those overseas get to vote weeks before the elections by sending their votes to the electoral returning officer – in Ashworth’s case, he sent his to the electoral office under the jurisdiction of his hometown, Rochester.
Regarding the BBC article on the BBC/Sky/ITV exit polls indicating a substantial Tory lead, Ashworth said, “They’ve been wrong before; they’ve been right before.”
He said that UK politics, with these elections, are going into un-chartered territory, with a promising third party featuring prominently in the results. If there were to be a hung parliament, said Ashworth, “That’s where you’ll have all this horse trading between parties. …”
Gordon Brown, the current Prime Minister, would have to stay on until it is clear what alliance will rule the UK government, he noted.
Traditionally, the alliance is between the Labour and Liberal Democrats. The Conservative party’s alliance is a Northern Ireland sister party, which news reports do not feature as one of the prominent parties.
However, Ashworth noted, “We don’t know what’s been happening behind closed doors.”
Opinion polls have been changing from day to day, he also observed: “It is all up in the air.”
When we asked whether voters have swung from one party to another and why, he noted that there has been a swing from the ruling Labour party to the Opposition Conservative.
“This is a bad time to be an incumbent government. The economic conditions in the world today are just very bad and tough decisions have had to be taken. We’ll see the same in the US in November with the Congressional elections.”
As to the implications in the change in administration for Belize, Ashworth said that traditionally, there is not a great difference in foreign policy for the UK; the main difference would be domestic politics and approaches to specific areas, such as taxation and education.
Would a Conservative Government bring more heat on Belmopan? Ashworth firmly declined to comment. “We have to wait and see what happens,” he responded.
He told us that by 8:00 p.m. Belize time, we should have a very reasonable idea of the election results, as usually there is “a mad scramble” to get in the first results.
(Belize, formerly British Honduras, was a colony of the United Kingdom until Independence in September of 1981.)