If you are interested in electoral politics and you find the two major parties un-stomachable, you’ll make your entry through a third party. Ah, and you will find out one day that we have a two-party system, and then you will decide to join them, or get your butt to the sidelines. Hopefully you find out soon, so you don’t frustrate yourself, or worse, frustrate people whom you convince to believe in you.
There’s no glory in our two-party system for a third party candidate in a general election. Independent Sedi vanquished Diane in 2003, but came in second to Godfrey.
Hmm, you know these election pundits have a hell of a story to tell there, and they’re sitting on it. It is the UDP that shouted truth crushed to earth will come to light, and my gudnis what is being revealed through the Commission of Inquiry could make you forget what was unearthed by the Senate Special Committee, if you’re the type that doesn’t have English bulldog in your veins. You know, the British hung a dead man because the court had sentenced him to die by hanging. That is the story that I yer.
The blurb in 2003 was that the UDP wanted no part of Sedi because he is Hubert’s breda — the UDP can be very personal — and they chose Kenny Morgan, who refused to cut his dreads. Manuel Esquivel had pressured Russell Garcia into cutting his, and to put on a suit with necktie too, but Barrow couldn’t get Morgan to budge. So he brought Diane…wait, hasn’t she always worn dreads? Oh, I see — okay on a woman, bad on a man, until Castro broke the discrimination barrier.
If a third party candidate stays in the game long, it must be that they enjoy the camaraderie in the organization they belong to, and maybe the notoriety that comes with challenging the big parties against all odds. Before I say anything bad, let me move on to my advice to the BPP.
Coming off their defeat of the PUP in the mayoral election in Punta Gorda this March, the BPP isn’t in the greatest position, but it gives them some traction to move up, to play a more meaningful role if they are anxious about change. To that end they would have to cut a deal with the UDP in Toledo. They wouldn’t be opening new territory; many third parties, for their purpose, have crossed the “floor.”
In the early 1970’s, a third party named CUF won control of the Corozal Town Board in an election that I’m near certain neither the NIP nor the breakaway PDM contested. If that wasn’t a deal then, the likely reason for the NIP and PDM sitting out in Corozal was that they were in disarray after the PUP routed their coalition in the 1969 general election.
The UDP was formed in 1973, and CUF not only contested the 1974 general election in coalition with them, but it also dissolved into the bigger party.
In 1971 UBAD formed a coalition with the NIP and contested the municipal elections in Belize City, and in 1974 UBAD went alone in the general elections and lost, after which the party officially dissolved. However, the “party,” although it’s out of electoral politics, has at times thrown its support behind one or the other of the two major parties in the interest of forwarding its agendas.
The NABR, which was the NIP faction of the present UDP, broke away in 1992, but rejoined the UDP in time for the 1993 general election to advance its agenda.
The VIP made its best showing in the 2009 BMP municipals, with a number of its candidates outpolling some of the candidates of the second-place PUP, but the party seems to have morphed into a pressure group, the BPM. The VIP moved to join the UDP to contest the 2006 municipal elections in Belmopan, but the UDP insisted on dominating the ticket and the merger fell apart. The UDP might have acted differently if the PUP hadn’t imploded in 2005. Maybe then the UDP would not have felt so strongly that it could sneeze at the VIP.
We should be on the way to introducing some form of campaign financing laws, and that would give third parties a slightly better chance in general elections, but the third parties that contest general elections can make no claim to have a hand there. The third parties have talked, but it is union power, mainly that of the BNTU, that has pushed that agenda to where it is now: a campaign promise of the party in power.
If we are to get proportional representation or the alternative vote, you can bet your bottom dollar that it will not come through the contesting of general elections by the third parties. The BPP has a great agenda, but it’s being wasted. George Price said the ballot is about winning power, and the BPP should get the sense, if its members are urgent about effecting change.
What, anybody ask the Queen?
Perennial people’s champion, Ms. Audrey Matura, counseled the government on her social media page about the type of person we will not tolerate to fill the post of GG. Earlier, Love FM had run a story which said that PM Briceño had visited the GG to ask him to step down, and that it was uncertain if the GG would “do as requested.” What, the PM marched up to Belmopan and rudely demanded that the GG hand over Her Majesty’s SUV and the keys to the governor’s mansion?
Of course that story was a stretch, and the station, or somebody, later retracted and said that the GG would be stepping down, and it was more like a mutual decision. Governor General Sir Colville Young is an elder, and it has been circulating for a long time that he was near to retirement.
John Briceño is not Manuel Esquivel, and Sir Colville is not Dame Minita. The reports are that the cold-hearted Manuel Esquivel did force out the very formal Dame Minita. PM Briceño isn’t a cold dude, and Sir Colville, I believe he must have sin, but that man has walked with kings and kept the common touch like no one has before him.
Ah, Audrey is very worried that the PUP might replace him with a noh-mek-a-seh-the-word or a party friend. The same thought might have crossed other minds since we got the news that we will be getting a new representative to Buckingham, but only Audrey is bold enough to wonder out loud what these PUPs might be up to. Audrey can be rough. She built the UDP, and when they messed up she kicked the stool from underneath them. She did not build the PUP, but if they have sense they will walk the chalk line.
There are some mighty big shoes there for somebody to fill, and we can’t question the person who opined to Audrey that Ms. Sandra Coye might be the fit. Of course she would. Sandra might not be as entertaining as Sir Colville, few people are, but in everything else she is his equal. Sandra is brilliant, educated, classy, and she ain’t no “yes sir, yes ma’am”. There is no doubt that she would be a great ambassador, but, but if she approved, would the Queen? No one can question Sandra’s credentials, but, putting it mildly, she has not been quiet about what she perceives as the failings of our former colonial master.
The old PUP was a very mischievous set, but when it came time to choose a GG, George Price went for quality and capacity to represent us at Buckingham. That George Price liked to tease, but he knew when to be very serious.