This subversion began simply enough about a quarter of a century ago, when the lawyers from opposite sides of the political fence moved from ad hoc cooperation on specific cases to permanent partnerships. Permanent legal partnerships between PUP and UDP lawyers meant that ?business went on as usual? even when the PUP were replaced in Belmopan by the UDP, and vice versa.
One example of this ?business as usual? involves the sale of Belizean passports. This tainted practice began under the UDP between 1984 and 1989, and the PUP had said they would abolish the sale of passports if they were elected in 1989. The people voted in the PUP and the sale of passports continued. The same thing happened in 1993, when the UDP promised to stop the sale of passports if they won. They did win, and the sale of passports continued. Same thing in 1998 ? PUP promise, PUP victory, passports sold as usual.
The collusion of PUP and UDP lawyers to ruin Derek Aikman by declaring him bankrupt and tossed out of the House of Representatives, has been swept under the historical rug because the PUP and the UDP control everything. Just friends.
In a poll taken last year by the Society for the Promotion of Education and Research (SPEAR), 49% of those polled indicated that they would be interested in voting for a third party. It was only a few months after that when the Belize Companies Registry/BELIPO scandal broke, the most outrageous example ever of inter-party legal conspiracy to enrich private individuals ? two PUP lawyers, one UDP lawyer, one government lawyer and a businessman.
The background to that inter-party coziness amongst the lawyers in question is well known to insiders. One of the two PUP lawyers in the Belize Companies Registry/BELIPO scandal, then Attorney General, began his legal life in the early 1990?s practicing in the law firm of the Hon. Leader of the Opposition, Dean Barrow. The UDP lawyer in the scandal was the younger brother of the Hon. Leader of the Opposition UDP Leader. That said younger brother was so friendly with the second PUP lawyer in the scandal that they once co-hosted a talk show on Channel 5. Just friends.
Just as a matter of interest, the daughter of the Leader of the PUP Opposition (who is still a PUP area representative) between 1984 and 1989 has been working in the law chambers of the UDP Leader?s law firm for many years. Just friends.
It is perhaps unfortunate that the VIP are running in only one of the nine municipalities, but it is also fortunate. This is an epoch-making situation, where we see anything more than 20 percent of the Belmopan votes going to the VIP, as a victory. The UDP have traditionally felt that any third party or independent candidate takes away from their total. Whether that is so or not, VIP will only affect the UDP in one municipality.
It has been the custom in British Honduras/Belize from the very beginning of party politics in the 1950?s to ridicule and humiliate third party and independent candidates. This ridicule and humiliation have contributed to a ?duopoly? of election power concentrated in the blue and the red. The lawyers took advantage of the concentration of power in just two parties, to subvert the parliamentary system through sub-surface collusion. Just friends. Business as usual.
We mean no evil for the UDP. They themselves must understand, if one observed the Nomination Day performances of the two machines, that the PUP have the clear edge. What this means is that on Wednesday, March 1, the PUP will do a better job of getting out their voters than the UDP will do in getting out theirs. And what this means, in turn, is that, for the UDP to win, that third of the voters in Belize City who are not PUP or UDP, will have to go red instead of blue.
Go VIP. We need a change in ?business as usual.?