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The Prime Minister?s unenviable position

EditorialThe Prime Minister?s unenviable position


Mr. Musa has surely anticipated and is prepared for any attempt by the Opposition to use its ?street forces? to embarrass him. He may not have anticipated such militant opposition, however, by the intellectual elite of the nation – the teachers and students who oppose his new budget.


The Prime Minister is in an unenviable position. He has succeeded in alienating the Lake Independence and Albert Divisions? party faithful for political reasons, and has caused pain to other members of his party from other divisions, who still support him, but do not like what they see and hear.


The business community ? both PUP and UDP sympathizers, is in strong opposition to his new budget, and he has handed the Opposition a sledgehammer, if they know how to use it, to beat him with.


With each day that passes in crisis and confrontation, the Prime Minister, in his seeming intransigency, becomes more and more the villain of the piece, while former members of his Cabinet, Honorables Cordel Hyde and Mark Espat, grow in stature and credibility. They, at least, have confessed their faults, and have allied themselves with popular sentiment, which is to say, against the new budget. The Prime Minister has yet to enter the confessional.


His public service is displeased with him, and the hands of the nation?s eight major unions are against him.


In the Heads of Agreement civil unrest in March/April of 1981, public officers, through their union, the Public Service Union (PSU), led the country in resisting the devilish act, signed by Premier George Prime and two of his ministers.


Today, it is not members of the PSU or the Opposition UDP who have become the heroes and heroines in this hour of resistance, but the academia, and herein lies one of the Hon. Musa?s problems.


The PUP administration has made it known that it views the Opposition UDP?s efforts at opposing the budget as ?hooliganism.? Consequently, his party faithful, who may have been shaken by the resistance shown so graphically on television, will grab at the propaganda straw that the UDP is trying to overthrow his legitimate administration by violence.


Mr. Musa?s police and the soldiers of the BDF know how to deal with violence. They do not know, however, how to deal with the passive but steadfast resistance of the academia. Policemen and soldiers cannot beat and tear gas students and teachers with impunity. If Mr. Musa allows this, then he loses stature in the eyes of the national and international media, and more of his middle class supporters will turn against him.


Teachers and students, you see, are not ?hooligans.? They have acted bravely and sensibly in the face of adversity, and we salute them for it.


The damage control machinery of the PUP has attempted to neutralize the teachers by appealing to them thusly: ?You must return to the classrooms ?you must continue the education of our young.?


We can think of no better reply than that offered by a teacher: ?We are educating our young ?we are teaching them to fight for their rights.?


Then there are the other unions that comprise the National Trade Union of Belize (NTUCB). It is ironic that the PUP, a party founded on trade unionism almost 55 years ago, is now seen to have abandoned the common working man and woman, and has instead professed ?undying love? for party millionaires.


The masses disbelieve Mr. Musa?s declaration that his heavy taxes on the business community would not, in the final analysis, be paid by the poor taxpayer. They have been lied to before.


The business people, for their part, are seriously alarmed by his declaration that they will be prevented from passing the new taxes to consumers, a time-honored tradition. They fight for their interests.


Nothing the Prime Minister can do at this point, except massive taxation, will produce the needed monies. Even if all the party?s hustlers returned all the money they still have, it would not be enough.


The Hon. Prime Minister, as far as we can see as we write on Thursday morning, is in an unenviable position. He needs the money. We don?t have it. What to do?

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