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by Charles Gladden BELIZE CITY, Thurs. Mar. 14,...

No big footsteps to follow, but everyone must win

EditorialNo big footsteps to follow, but everyone must win

When Hon. John Briceño took over as leader of Belize last year, he didn’t have a tough act to follow re: our economic prosperity; he wasn’t in new territory, because no Belize prime minister has ever taken over a robust economy.

Belize’s second prime minister, Manuel Esquivel, of the UDP, took over from George Price and a PUP that couldn’t carry us any further. Price, who led Belize during the self-government years, beginning in 1964, and who became Belize’s first prime minister when we got our independence in 1981, was presiding over a spent government when he called general elections on December 14, 1984, and got blown out at the polls, 21 to 7. In fairness to Price, he could have borrowed to make his government look better in that election, for our external debt in 1984 was less than US$100 million.

Maybe the PUP under Price should be excused for its lackluster economic performance, because much of its energy was spent in the struggle to see us stand proudly among the world of nations. Belize could have had its independence from the United Kingdom along with a number of other British colonies in the Caribbean, Jamaica and Trinidad & Tobago in 1962, or along with Barbados and Guyana in 1966, but for the unjust claim of our territory by our sometimes aggressive and always powerful neighbor, Guatemala.

Independence was greatly delayed because of this claim, and it was not until the mid-1970s, after much lobbying across the globe, mainly with the African/Caribbean/Pacific (ACP) countries, and winning some support in Central America, that Belize broke through. In 1975 Belize won massive support for its cause at the United Nations General Assembly, and when the mighty United States, under its 39th president, James Earl Carter, Jr., gave its support to Belize in 1980, Guatemala stood almost alone in its stance against our country.

Price won the title “Father of the Nation” for leading Belize to Independence in 1981, but in 1984 the people of Belize felt it was time for a change. Price would come back miraculously in 1989, for a single term, during which regime seeds would be sown that would produce a bitter harvest in another PUP government, a decade later.

When Esquivel began his reign in 1984, there was an open field before him, for the country wasn’t much indebted, and major assets in the country were under government control. That Esquivel government, which would lose at the polls very surprisingly in 1989, privatized the banana industry; sold shares in the nation’s only telecommunications company, BTL, but kept control; sold passports in an economic citizenship program; and was included in the USAID program.

The nation’s reserves were reportedly at its highest ever when the UDP went to the polls in 1989, and lost by two seats, 15 to 13. Some UDPs expressed regret that they hadn’t splurged, but that couldn’t have happened under Esquivel’s methodical fiscal management.
The UDP, with Esquivel at the helm, would return to power in 1993 in a shock victory, when the PUP, which was looking good because of heavy borrowing and a splintering of the UDP due to divergent views over the Maritime Areas Act (MAA) that had been passed in the House of Representatives in 1992, called the election about 15 months early.

The splintered opposition came together hastily to contest the snap general election, and when the returning officer finished reading out the numbers early in the morning of July 1, 1993, it was UDP 16, PUP 13. The UDP was totally unprepared to lead, and it lost much luster chasing and failing to bring to justice a PUP operative it insisted had stolen the people’s money, and also for guillotining 800 public officers to solve a debt crisis.

The people saw Said Musa and his PUP government as a breath of fresh air in 1998, gave his party a whopping 26 to 3 victory, and for a time the big borrowing, spending, privatizing PUP indeed looked like they were our saviors, until we couldn’t keep up with the servicing of the high-interest loans they took, we discovered some of the spending was going into the pockets of friends of the party, and the privatization of BTL backfired. The PUP came in like a roaring train in 1998, and they went out with a shellacking, 25 to 6, in 2008.

Enter Dean Barrow and the UDP, and the hopes of a nation were with them, for they had promised to right the failures of the former government, and to take care of the perceived worst crime of the PUP, corruption, with a sharp machete. Lamentably, the machete wasn’t dull, it was nonexistent; promised political reform was mostly forgotten, and instead of righting failures, they compounded them. The people waited a long time for the UDP to deliver, and when the party didn’t, they went to the polls in 2020 and voted overwhelmingly, 26 to 5, for the PUP and its new leader, John Briceño.

Of our five PMs, Hon. John Briceño inherited the worst economy, by far, for when he and his party took over, our country, like the rest of the world was (and is) in the grip of a pandemic. His only consolation is that he is minus the problem of having to measure up to a predecessor, for like Esquivel following Price (1984), like Musa following Esquivel (1998), and like Barrow following Musa (2008) he is not following giant footsteps re: our economic prosperity.

When he takes the podium on Independence Hill in Belmopan on Tuesday, September 21, for the 40th celebration of our independence, the PM does have the pressure of a promise that all of us will win under his government. Many Belizeans have been waiting for that for a very long time.

Some on the side of the divide who know where their next meal is coming from — live in a good house, drive a good vehicle, have all their loan payments covered, and have a little capital and investment ambitions — have blamed our failures on our “still” being a young country. Belizeans on the other side of the divide, who are the majority, are tired of hearing excuses. While they understand the particular difficulty of this time because of the pandemic, they expect, demand the best from their new government. Every step, every move the PM and his new government make, the people are watching, because they are exhausted, tired of bad governance, tired of failure.

Forty years ago we boldly unfurled our flag at the United Nations. The promise then was that we would all win. The vow of John B and his new government was that they would deliver.

Happy Birthday, Belize!

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