There are political campaigns going on in all six districts of Belize, as well as in San Pedro Ambergris Caye, for City (Belize City; Belmopan) and Town (Corozal; Orange Walk; San Ignacio/Santa Elena; Benque Viejo del Carmen; Dangriga; Punta Gorda; San Pedro Ambergris Caye) Council elections on Wednesday, March 4.
If we are to judge from the Belize City campaign, these are low budget, low key exercises. Both the two major political parties have exposed divisions at high leadership levels, and the voters in the old capital do not seem very enthusiastic about the campaign.
The wrangling inside the incumbent UDP Belize City Council leading up to last October’s candidate convention was personal, and it was ugly. The principals have largely closed ranks to meet the enemy, but they are fooling very few people.
These will be new PUP Leader Johnny Briceno’s first national elections, and the most interesting aspect of the PUP situation, to our mind, has been the personal attacks on Briceño in the Said Musa/Ralph Fonseca newspaper which is published by Omar Silva. Exactly what it is that Musa and Fonseca are seeking to achieve, is not clear. Silva’s newspaper includes PUP Deputy Leader Mark Espat in their attack targets, not to mention the publisher of Amandala. For sure the two “accused” are desperate for party support in their theft trials, and they are frustrated by Johnny’s hands off policy, but Musa and Fonseca have substantial financial resources in a time when money is scarce, so they may be dreaming of a return to intra-party power.
The PUP are expected to benefit from the UDP’s missteps in the cane belt with the core sampler matter, so it will be interesting to see how the voters in Corozal Town, Orange Walk Town, and perhaps even San Pedro Ambergris Caye, react next Wednesday. (Even before the core sampler controversy, UDP Orange Walk area representatives, Gaspar Vega and Marcel Cardona, were known to be at loggerheads.)
Belmopan was also the scene of a bitter intra-party UDP struggle, as Cayo South area representative John Saldivar tried to unseat Mayor Simeon Lopez by sponsoring his own mayoral candidate. Mayor Lopez withstood the challenge, but bad blood remains.
The PUP do not appear very energetic in the capital city, and the VIP, who did very well in 2006 (almost 20 percent of the vote in the Town Council race), began campaigning late.
In Benque, the PUP do appear energetic. We know very little about the San Ignacio/Santa Elena twin towns.
The UDP have a problem in Dangriga. Incumbent Mayor Frank “Pawpa” Mena has declined to run again, and a Garifuna-Giao issue arose after the Giao mayoral candidate won, very narrowly. The defeated Garifuna candidate is running as an independent. Dangriga voters are always marching to their own drums, so the Dangriga results will be interesting.
Punta Gorda has a PUP Mayor but a majority UDP Town Council, which has made for all kinds of confusion since March 2006. Wil Maheia, Toledo’s rising political star, is running a People’s National Party (PNP) slate, and this newspaper is a Wil Maheia fan. We wish the PNP well.
These are the most quiet national campaigns we have ever seen. A number of things will start happening after the votes are counted, however. The most important of these things will take place within the PUP, where Johnny Briceño will either become stronger or he will become weaker.
Prime Minister and UDP Leader Hon. Dean Barrow will have to present a national budget after the votes have been counted, and the news will not be good. Belize’s financial gorilla, Lord Michael Ashcroft, made a quick visit to Belize last week to give another national television interview to his Channel 5 employees. He is quite unhappy with Mr. Barrow, for many years one of his lawyers, but the Lord, on the other hand, was not tooting Briceño’s horn. Again, we opine, some things will begin to change on Belize’s political landscape beginning on March 5. In the case of the March 4 national municipal elections, then, and strangely enough, the storm will come after the calm.