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G-7 30 months later

EditorialG-7 30 months later
When good detectives begin to investigate a mysterious murder, the first thing they ask themselves is this – who benefited from this crime? That is a model which we may use to consider the G-7 rebellion two and a half years later. The two questions we would ask are, of the 7 Cabinet Ministers who challenged the systematic abuse of public funds and the violation of financial regulations, who was it that benefited and who was it that suffered.
 
Of the 7 Cabinet Ministers, the one who benefited the most was Godfrey Smith, who became Minister of Tourism 4 months after G-7, and then became a Deputy Leader of the ruling PUP 6 months after he was a part of the Cabinet group which declared that Prime Minister/PUP Leader, Hon. Said Musa, should do something about Finance Minister/PUP national campaign manager, Hon. Ralph Fonseca.
 
The two G-7 Ministers who suffered for their unsuccessful challenge to Fonseca’s power were Hon. Mark Espat and Hon. Cordel Hyde, who were removed and resigned, respectively, from Cabinet 4 months after G-7. These two were not returned to Cabinet until 11 months later, in November of 2005, when the PUP were preparing for national municipal elections, and felt this was a move which was politically expedient.
 
In the last couple months, the Hon. Godfrey Smith has surfaced as a high profile commentator in the PUP’s newspaper on a variety of enormously important topics, such as the Carnival cruise port issue, the businesses of Lord Michael Ashcroft, the party status of the Hon. Ralph Fonseca, the proposed new shrimp industry legislation, Taiwan or Beijing, and so on and so forth.
 
For a Cabinet Minister to suddenly become a weekly newspaper columnist, complete with byline and picture, is unprecedented in Belizean politics and it is sensational. Mr. Smith made this move almost 9 months after the PUP suffered devastating defeats in national municipal elections. The PUP lost every single City Council and Town Board throughout the length and breadth of Belize. March 1, 2005, was a UDP landslide victory.
 
Since Hon. Smith emerged as the Minister to benefit at the same time that Hon. Espat and Hon. Hyde suffered, we have watched and listened to Mr. Godfrey with greater interest. Our interest became even greater when Hon. Smith’s Pickstock constituency was extended last year south across the Haulover Creek to include a sizeable portion of what had previously been Hon. Hyde’s Lake Independence constituency. Northside Pickstock became a partially Southside division with the addition of the area between Partridge Street and Sarstoon Street. The new portion of Pickstock is bounded in the north by the Haulover Creek and in the south by Vernon Street. It is an area whose voting pattern in Lake I elections since 1984 indicated that it was more UDP than the rest of the constituency.
 
Whereas one would have thought that Godfrey Smith would have made an effort to liaise with Cordel Hyde where the new portion of Pickstock was concerned, he did no such thing. And it is now clear, if we understand Mr. Smith’s columns, that the reason for his attitude was that Hyde was attacking the privileged status of Lord Michael Ashcroft and Barry Bowen. Hon. Godfrey Smith has not made any effort, since he began writing his newspaper column two months ago, to disguise the fact that he is protective of the interests of Ashcroft and Bowen.
 
Our conclusion is that next election Godfrey will utilize the Ralph Fonseca tactic, which is to throw very large sums of money at a poor, black electorate. In Godfrey’s case, it will be Ashcroft and Bowen money, and of course, BELIPO proceeds.
 
There is none of us who can categorically declare that the “big money wind” will not work in Pickstock when Smith defends his seat in late 2007 or early 2008.   It does seem, however, that the Social Security Board and Development Finance Corporation investigations have opened the eyes of many of the Belizean people to the fact that election handouts are not really the “freebies” they appear to be. We, the voting populace, end up paying back several times over for all the election day giveaways.   We pay with five years of taxes for one day of bribes.
 
There is no need for us to say that we will support Mark and Cordel. That goes without saying. But we need to say this publicly to Godfrey. You represent everything we have fought against for 38 years. We are what we are. Power to the people.

  

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