The People’s United Party, Belize’s most successful political party, has faced and overcome many crises in its 56 year history. A sampling of PUP crises would include the arrest and imprisonment of Leigh Richardson and Philip Goldson in 1951; the defection of John Smith in 1954; the power struggle in 1956; the expulsion of George Price from talks in London in 1957; the Seventeen Proposals of 1968; the Heads of Agreement in 1981; the PUP’s first general election defeat in 1984; the May 15 dissension in 1994; and the G-7 challenge of 2004.

But the Social Security Board crisis, which came to a head on Tuesday, July 4, 2006, with the tabling of a detailed report which took a 4-member Senate Investigation Committee twenty two months to research and prepare, may be the PUP’s worst crisis ever.

The history of Mexico’s Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) provides clear evidence that nothing lasts forever. The PRI ruled Mexico, as if with a vise grip, for 71 years. The PRI crashed in 2000, losing the presidential election to the Partido de Accion Nacional (PAN). Now the PRI has run a weak third in the 2006 presidential elections in Mexico. The lesson of the PRI is a lesson for those in the PUP who cherish the illusion that their party is a product of divine intervention.

The siphoning off of the $40 million of Social Security Board money to finance the ill-fated Intelco project, was a product of a conspiracy at high levels of the ruling PUP. The importance of the Senate Committee’s report, although the Opposition UDP got itself into the awkward position where it cannot embrace the report unconditionally and cannot congratulate the relevant Senators without reservation, is that everything, everything is now in black and white, and it will now be extremely difficult for the Prime Minister not to move against those who are responsible for the financial debacle, those who are responsible by commission and those who are responsible by omission.

Ever since the uproar over the misuse of SSB funds began in July of 2004, to be followed soon after by the temporary rebellion of seven PUP Cabinet Ministers against the Prime Minister, Mr. Musa has been chipping and slicing, to use tennis parlance. He has been playing for time, at all times. When he has had to make concessions to the wolves outside the door, he has done so, in order to gain time. He has sacrificed everything, even prestige, for time. The problem for the PUP is, however, that time may have run out on March 1, 2006.

What this means is that when all his political history indicates that he will try to chip and slice when he returns from St. Kitts and Nevis to face the Senate’s SSB report, the hard evidence of March 1 demands that Mr. Musa serve and volley, no matter what the consequences for the party. What March 1 said, was that the people of Belize care about their money and their country more than they do about the historical mystique of the PUP. In fact, at this newspaper we believe that March 1, in political terms, buried the historical mystique of the PUP, because the whole PUP campaign was based on historical mystique and nostalgia. That campaign was rejected, rejected out of hand on March 1.

The PUP has become a party controlled by cronies. The traditional rank-and–file have aged and declined. When the PUP could convince the younger electorate that corruption in the party/government was not organized and systematic, the PUP’s superior political skills continued to defeat the UDP more often than not. But the Senate’s SSB report is a damning document. It is a document which establishes, enough to satisfy the vast majority of the non-1950 generation, that there was PUP corruption which was organized and systematic.

This comes at a time when the people of Belize are groaning under terrible and growing public utility bills (telephone, water, electricity) and new and increased taxation. If the people were angry on March 1, they became apoplectic on July 4.

The PUP maneuvered wonderfully with respect to Senator Richard Bradley’s role on the Senate SSB committee. Leader of Government Business in the Senate, Senator Bradley and the PUP derived some much needed credibility from his presence on the SSB investigation committee, when the UDP, by contrast, was pouting and pointing fingers. The thing is, however, that now the Senate committee’s call for the heads of Narda Garcia, Yasin Shoman, et alii, carries the added weight of the PUP’s leader in the Senate.

One assumes that the Prime Minister will have to retire Narda and Yasin, but he will do so with handsome stipends for their relish and enjoyment. Whereupon, the people of Belize will become even more enraged. March 1 was proof, for those who cared to see, that the PUP was in serious trouble, that the people of Belize had turned against the PUP. But the PUP, like the PRI, believe that they are untouchable, the golden boys and girls of Belizean politics. The PUP have forgotten that all power belongs to the people. So let it be written; so let it be done.