We have not seen the Prime Minister, Rt. Hon. Said Musa, so upbeat in the House for years. For a man who has been battered by unfavorable polls since the G-7 challenge in August of 2004, Mr. Musa was happy, almost playful, in House debate on Wednesday, December 19. The reason, it appears, was that he had caught the Opposition UDP in a pincers movement which forced them to vote publicly against the elected Senate and the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) just weeks before general elections.
It is a fundamental rule of war that you don’t do what your opponent wants or expects you to do. The UDP knew that Wednesday’s elected Senate motion was just political games the PUP were playing. In politics, you win with the swing, which is to say, the voters who are neither PUP or UDP are the ones who decide most general elections. The party voters are a winning campaign’s foundation, but it is the swing voters who build the house on Belmopan hill. The third parties, those groupings which appeal to voters who are neither PUP nor UDP, have made more noise in recent years than ever before. The third parties, by definition almost, now dominate, or at least seriously influence, swing voters in Belize. Overall, the big issue of the third parties is the elected Senate. The PUP put together a package which would have them publicly in favor of the elected Senate, champions of the proposition, even though they were not about to introduce the elected Senate itself before general elections.
Months ago, the Opposition Leader, Hon. Dean Barrow, took a position which was skeptical of the elected Senate in the form in which the third parties were proposing it. He had an alternative proposal, which would retain the appointed Senate but ensure that it was not controlled by either the PUP or the UDP.
But the third parties, and a large slice of so-called civil society, had spent so many years pushing the elected Senate in the newspapers, on radio and television, and at all public fora available, that “elected Senate” had become a mantra. It was a mantra which Barrow ignored. “Elected Senate” had become a call to arms, and the supposed Prime Minister-in-waiting did not seize the time: he, instead, descended into a kind of didacticism.
In retrospect, the die had been cast. There was an elected Senate hook in Mr. Barrow’s political mouth, and he could not, or would not spit it out. On Wednesday in the House, he ended up voting against a referendum which would give the people of Belize an opportunity to decide for or against the elected Senate in a poll, presumably on general election day.
Mr. Barrow is not a fool. He and his party have reasons why they voted against the elected Senate resolution. The elected Senate thing is a PUP red herring. But the PUP knew what the UDP would do, and wanted the UDP to do what they did. The PUP Leader was in glee as the trap closed on the Opposition side.
The other claw of the pincers was the CCJ resolution, which, for added measure on Wednesday, was tied to the Belize Coast Guard resolution. So when the UDP voted against the CCJ resolution, they had to vote down the Coast Guard establishment resolution, something they really didn’t want to do.
It got worse than that for the UDP Leader. Speaking on the adjournment, he had to counterpunch, so he threw one of his best blows – a documented attack on the land abuse within the PUP Ministry of Natural Resources, which sells prime land dirt cheap to PUP cronies for supposed “empowerment” and “development.” The PUP cronies, however, are only interested in the “dead raise.” They turn around and sell such “empowerment” land, to foreigners generally, for 50, 100 times what they paid for it. This abusive alienation of the national patrimony is one of the worst forms of government corruption in Belize. Barrow lashed out. The Hon. Minister of Natural Resources, Florencio Marin, now had to respond. He did so in a fashion which had Mr. Barrow staring across the aisle and declaring, you can’t intimidate me. Whereupon Mr. Marin responded, you can’t intimidate me either.
The background to this acrimonious exercise in House machismo, was that Barrow and Florencio have been good friends since the 1984–1989 UDP administration, when Mr. Marin was Leader of the PUP Opposition. Mr. Marin’s daughter, Magali, has been a staple of Mr. Barrow’s law firm for more than a decade. Now Daddy and Boss were at each other’s throats. Mr. Musa must have watched with some satisfaction.
This was the second time the PUP had brought the CCJ resolution to the House of Representatives. The CCJ resolution, which is a constitutional one, requires a three quarters majority House vote, so the PUP needed at least one UDP vote to pass the resolution. On the occasion of the first resolution, the UDP, knowing they had the government over a barrel, suggested a quid pro quo. If the PUP cut down their borrowing, or some such suggestion, then the UDP would support CCJ. The PUP refused, so the UDP voted no to CCJ.
On Wednesday the PUP brought back CCJ, just to embarrass the UDP. The Prime Minister was playing politics. The UDP were trapped. They had put themselves in a position where they felt they had to be “consistent.” Or so it seems. They had to reject CCJ. Mr. Musa anticipated correctly. And now the UDP are on the “wrong side of history.”
The UDP House rhetoric displayed great confidence where the upcoming general elections are concerned. Confidence is good, because it makes you relax, which increases efficiency. But great confidence can spill over into overconfidence. Overconfidence is not good.
There is a need for the UDP Leader to be careful. Whereas he and his Mesopotamia sidekick have ample reason to be absolutely confident in their constituencies, the same does not apply to many other UDP standard bearers. The general elections are not 31 versus 31. The general elections are head-to-head in 31 different constituencies. There is a difference between the two perspectives on the elections. Mr. Barrow should make sure he understands the second perspective.