Mon. May 15, 2023

A friend of mine went to a wedding last weekend in Belize City, and made some observations to me which I will try to expand upon, in my own way. The wedding was a PUDP affair, with both sides evenly distributed in representation. Apparently, many of the UDP guests are prospering more now, than they were during the UDP’s 3 terms. The PUP have been more relaxed in choosing their executives; they have not stuck to that rigid partisanship of feeding their own and leaving scraps for the rest of them. They have been very democratic in the way they hire, in other words, looking for the best to do the job.

Dean Barrow is a very smart man, and he never let his constituents, the Belizean people, forget that! He could’ve been a great leader, some observe, maybe even greater than George Price, but his need for control, his need to be involved in every single detail of his administration, was his greatest fault, his shortcoming. The reason I believe, why his administration is going to go down as one of the most corrupt in the history of Belizean politics!

While he was paying attention to every little detail, making sure loyalty was intact among his people, he failed to see, or correct, the blatant corruption that was creeping slowly into the veins, into every artery of his administration. There were times when some were checked, but most of them in the hierarchy, like the Royal Family, just fed off the teats of the Belizean people! Nepotism, which occurs in most governments, reached new heights. People who were unworthy of trust had trust heaped upon them. And boy, did they take advantage of that fortunate, or unfortunate situation!

He left a vacuum in leadership that has caused this descent into total chaos, and a slow slouching towards self-destruction of this opposition party. Of the 5 members left after the humiliation in the last general elections, one is almost completely absent, one has been partially absent, 2 are under legal and financial stress and inquiry, and one is there because of his last name, with no idea of what governance means. Not a band of brothers, but a band of stragglers, staggering about, going nowhere.

Meanwhile, the PUPs have a free hand in carrying about the business of leading the nation, in whatever direction they see fit! Unfettered by the presence of a limping, crippled Opposition, that is going nowhere, anywhere! The time of the Caesars is over. Long live the Republic!

SPQR: Senatus Populesque Romanus.

Glen