Before the ruling UDP make their predictable response to last weekend’s editorial by sending their attack dogs after me, I think I need to remind them of certain things.
The first one is this. When any of the two major political parties wins a victory as big as the UDP won in February of 2008, what it means is that almost all of the independent voters, and some of the PUP voters, voted UDP. The PUP voters who voted red will be the first ones to turn against the UDP administration, but it is when the independents begin to change that the political tide would begin to turn.
It is important for the UDP leaders who are now wallowing in the comforts and luxuries of power, to remember this. In March of 2003, they lost a general election quite badly. A pattern had been established following independence in 1981, that the voters of Belize ousted the ruling party every single time. That pattern was broken in 2003. Why was it broken? The PUP won a second consecutive term. The pattern was broken in 2003, I submit, because the UDP was playing footsie with Lord Ashcroft, his Belize Bank and his BTL in 2003.
In February of 2004, the UDP marched against PUP financial corruption and excesses, but there was hardly a political ripple. Two months later, the nation’s leading newspaper fired a historic editorial – Public finances, private domain – and three months later the Social Security Board scandal broke. In August, weeks after the SSB scandal, there was an attempt by seven PUP Cabinet Ministers to begin the righting of Belize’s financial ship.
In late August of 2004, the UDP again marched against PUP financial corruption and excesses. This time, unlike the case in February, the unions came; civil society came; everybody and his brother and his sister came.
In a sense, we Belizeans are victims of the two major parties’ domination of the electoral system. The fact that the Rt. Hon. Said Musa, who was constitutionally responsible for the 1998-2004 era of “public finances/private domain,” and who had become a lame duck Prime Minister by February of 2005, the fact that he can aspire to reclaim PUP leadership, and subsequently the Prime Ministership, just two years after being formally ousted, is a function of our democracy’s weakness. The lesson of first-past-the-post in Belize is that the only alternative to the UDP, is the PUP, and vice versa. After 12 years as PUP Leader and 10 years as Prime Minister, Mr. Musa is owed many favors by many people, especially within the PUP itself. He therefore believes he has a chance to reclaim power within the PUP. Once he does that, UDP self-destruction would mean Mr. Musa becomes Prime Minister again. Check it.
Prime Minister Dean Barrow’s budget speech on Monday, March 15, suggests some rough times ahead for Belize. It has become the consensus of economists all over the planet that higher taxes are the worst way to go when you are in this kind of recessionary predicament in which Belize finds itself. Having nationalized Lord Ashcroft’s BTL in August of last year, in a desperate but uncharacteristic move, Mr. Barrow could not summon up enough daring to go after BNE, the wealthy oil company. One can understand his reluctance: it was born of prudence.
Mr. Musa’s resurgent ambition is good news for Mr. Barrow, because the Prime Minister has a bogeyman in white-haired flesh to go after in the House of Representatives. The question independent voters will begin to ask, more and more, is this – what happened to the DFC commission of inquiry? As increased taxation shrinks the Belizean economy in the months ahead and the pain becomes worse, we Belizeans will want to know why the financial corruption culprits of the previous administration are still walking so free, two years after the UDP were given 25 of 31 seats to deal with the matter.
After a while, as Mr. Musa continues to stand unfazed in the House, Mr. Barrow will begin to look like a bully, if that hasn’t happened already. Mr. Barrow will argue that he can’t do anything more than the court system’s attempts to bring Mr. Musa and Ralph Fonseca to some kind of justice. The thing is that the SSB and the DFC are bones which are still sticking in the throats of independent voters.
Now today, there are people inside UDP Cabinet and leadership circles who have exposed how excited they are to be where they are. They have expressed, actually manifested their excitement, and they are indulging in excesses.
And so, today more than ever, the voters of Belize realize we are victims of a functional “tunu ball” system. For sure many of the Belizeans we designate as independent voters are those who, strictly speaking, belong to the unions. Fine. But many of Belize’s independent voters are those, more generally speaking, who established this roots publication as Belize’s leading newspaper 29 years ago, and have maintained that support across generational lines.
When Public finances, private domain was published on April 11, 2004, the inner circle of the ruling PUP interpreted it as an Amandala attack on their government. I am quoting from the Hon. Francis Fonseca in his Belmopan office. From here on the ground, the Belizean people heard that editorial as their crying out against financial corruption. If the inner circle of the ruling UDP interpret Prestidigitator as an Amandala attack, they will set in operation a train of events. Who feels it, knows it.
Power to the people. Power in the struggle.