The February 7th, 2008 general elections have come and gone, and frankly – now there’s a bad pun – I’m glad to see it gone. My feeling right now is one of close to absolute exhaustion. Political campaigns are grueling exercises at best, and this one made me realize that I’m not a young man anymore. I do feel good about having helped an intelligent, young, talented and energetic man, the Hon. Mark Espat, one of the only politicians I have ever met who has a conscience, to continue his political career. The only other Belizean politician that I have similar respect for is Hon. Henry Young, a man who I will continue to address as such even though he has retired from active politics.
As for the Belizean people’s voice, they did the only thing that this system of government allows them to do – vote the PUP out and vote the UDP in. I think that the first-past-the-post system sucks because it severely limits people’s options. As long as it remains the system that we use to elect our leaders, third parties and minority views will never have any serious impact on the political scene. What’s wrong with this picture is that the two major parties are not really all that different when it comes to political philosophy; they are both proponents of the neo-liberal school of government which supports the privatization of as many state assets as possible and holds that the power of the state should be primarily directed towards protecting business interests instead of serving the needs of the general population.
The objection that the UDP voiced towards the PUP was not over philosophy; it was over the absolutely outrageous level of corruption that the PUP leadership sanctioned and profited from.
At this point I really don’t know what this UDP government will be like. The 1984-1989 UDP government had the mandate to change the direction that Belize was going in.
With 8,866 square miles and no more than 300,000 people, Belize should be pretty close to a paradise on earth. It didn’t happen in 1984; it became business as usual. Now the 2008-2013 UDP government has the same opportunity. Will it do or won’t it do? Only time will tell.
With 25 out of 31 seats in the House, this government has the greatest power that any government can have – the power to amend the Constitution! This is awesome, because this government can change the fundamental document that Belize should have been governed by. I say “should have” because the last PUP administration ran roughshod over our Constitution. The reason I say “awesome” is because the Constitution can be altered for good or for bad. I kind of have the feeling that our Constitution might actually be too easy to amend. This is the third government since Independence that has the required ¾ majority to do so, and we have been independent for only 27 years. Remember that our Constitution contains our fundamental rights and freedoms and they can be “legally” taken away as easily as they can be “legally” extended!
What comes to mind right away is crime. Most Belizeans are fed up with the level of violent crime in our country. I am one of them. Not only does it make all of us insecure and apprehensive; it costs money, big money. If the level of crime was not what it is, I could be playing as many gigs as I could handle. But the new government needs to tread carefully. Our right to be free from unreasonable searches was severely eroded during the 1993-1998 UDP administration, when searches without a warrant were allowed “on suspicion of drugs or firearms.” Crime didn’t go down – it went up and Belizeans are well aware of the abuses that this law allowed unscrupulous and corrupt police officers to engage in, particularly on the Southside of Belize City! Crime is a social problem that can never be solved by force alone. What makes things harder is that the commitment, financial and otherwise, necessary to solve that social problem hasn’t been there for years. If young people are not given the opportunities to “make it” legitimately, based on where they live and on what “social class” they are perceived to be a part of, and if the political leadership doesn’t set the example, crime will continue to plague us!
There is no witness protection program that could help here. Belize is too small and besides, witness protection programs were never designed for the average citizen who happened to see a crime. Such programs require that a person and his/her immediate family will be given a complete new identity and therefore, can never contact old friends or other family members again! These programs are intended for the criminal who will “rat” on his/her associates in order to avoid a long prison sentence!
The outrage at “Putt Putt” doesn’t appear to have any political connections as some rumors suggest. It appears to be the logical result of the kind of crimes that take place in a narco-state when the only option for “justice” is perceived to be in the streets! Belizeans might be prepared to support a harsh crackdown by the police, but only if politically appointed and controversial commanding officers are retired first and the Police Force is recognized by the citizenry as a truly professional outfit in which promotions are based on merit, possibly with a “civil service” examination as the major criteria for that promotion! If something isn’t done, kiss the rest of the nightlife in the city good by. We are prisoners in our own houses, as things stand now.
There are significant differences with the situation now as opposed to the situation in 1984, particularly when it comes to the financial condition that Said Musa’s disastrous tenure as Prime Minister left for us. It surely exceeds an empty treasury; this was like stripping away not only the paint, but the primer as well as the material itself! No doubt a great deal of what flew away may be next to impossible to document. When I fell into my bed last night, I had this image of people running around and jamming the paper shredders in their offices! This situation has been exacerbated because the “no audit” years didn’t begin in 1998 or in 2003. They began in 1989, and this means that the UDP was in power for 5 of those “no audit” years.
New administrations usually get a fairly reasonable “honeymoon”- that is, that they usually aren’t the target of serious criticism during the first 6 months or first year in office. Let me state categorically that the “honeymoon” period for our new government will be shorter than a midget with two amputated legs! The modus operandi of each new government has been to dismiss any crimes of the previous government with: “That was in the past. Let’s move forward.” One of my favorite pieces of music is a blues written and recorded by Sting, which has the line, “Let’s forget about the future, and get on with the past!” The extent of the malfeasance by the Musa government has been such that the public will not stand for a half-hearted attempt to prosecute the offenders, or as has been the previous custom, no attempt at all!
Belizeans have taken a massive hit and times are tighter than they have ever been. Those cronies who have “borrowed” millions of taxpayer dollars without having made a single payment for those loans need to be stripped of all their ill-gotten assets and to have to learn to eat the same food served at the Hattieville Ramada that poor Belizeans sentenced to years in jail for stealing a 25-cent bag of chips have had to learn to eat.
Those politicians who participated in and enabled grand larceny on a huge scale need to join them! It’s happening today in Central American countries that have previously been run by military dictatorships. Belizeans will be satisfied with nothing less, and woe to this government if they don’t understand that! Screw PUP cries of alleged “victimization” if the evidence is solid!
There could be a real positive today that was not there in the past. Belizean oil is finally commercially exploitable in an atmosphere of concerns about world shortages and with prices approaching and probably soon exceeding $100 US a barrel. If Prime Minister Barrow’s UDP government will go after those unconscionable thieves and take control of the country’s oil revenues in a manner that will benefit all Belizeans, they have an unparalleled opportunity to leave a legacy that will anoint them as national heroes. With the potential for oil revenues, a few billion dollars of debt could well be chump change! But, remember. Ancient proverbs have a ring of truth to them, like the old Chinese proverb (I believe it’s Chinese), “Be careful what you wish for. You may get it!” I am prepared to support this government 100%, as long as it doesn’t give me reasons not to! Prime Minister Barrow’s statement on TV that politically motivated appointments have to be tempered by the need to employ professionals is a good beginning, but a lot of promises have been made to improve the declining standard of living that Belizeans have suffered in the last 10 years. The UDP has a reputation for fiscal conservatism, and fiscal conservatism can leave casualties in its wake. Belizeans don’t need any more collateral damage than we have already had. Let’s see if the ability to execute was thought about when those promises were made.
Another question is, “What happens to what is left of the PUP?” This once proud and powerful party has been reduced to dying embers by the greed of Ralph Fonseca, Said Musa and their cronies, “friends” and hangers on. If Said Musa had a genuine bone left in his body, he would have apologized to the Belizean people and announced that he would abandon any attempt to try to retain the position of “party leader.” However, he has done just the opposite. He still claims that he has done “nothing wrong” and that he was the victim of a “biased and hostile media.” What planet has this guy migrated to? He’s delusional! Mark Espat has earned the right to become the new leader of the PUP!
In retrospect, the Hon. Mark Espat and the Hon. Cordel Hyde made the right decision. They were under tremendous pressure from many people (including me) to resign from the PUP and run as independents. Now I realize that if they had done so, they wouldn’t have retained their seats! I will bring up a conversation that I had almost a year ago, that if a new PUP had to be built from the ashes of the old one, so be it! My role as a campaigner brought me into contact with lots of people, young and old, who are still willing to support the PUP, even if I don’t really understand some of their reasoning! Although I campaigned for the Hon. Mark Espat, and not for the PUP – that was the one non-negotiable condition I asked for and was given – andindeed, he and the Hon. Cordel Hyde moved as far away from the party leadership as possible, and many of the voters who made those victories possible were still PUP supporters.
Like X has said, not all Belizeans who still consider themselves PUP supporters should be dismissed as evil incarnate. In the Westminster system, the party leader takes the hit for major defeats, and this episode certainly qualifies as such. Said Musa will not be capable of holding on to the “leadership” of the PUP, nor does he have any right to, not after this dismal performance!
I haven’t yet worked with the actual numbers, but the first-past-the-post system has a nasty habit of distorting the stats. Since Independence, the actual percentages of the vote allocated to the winning and losing parties has averaged somewhere around 52% to 48% even though the number of seats won by the winning party can reflect a much wider gap.
This is because it is possible to win a large number of seats by small margins and lose others by larger margins. I just heard Channel 5 say that the winning percentage for the UDP was an “impressive” 55%. It is “impressive,” but not overwhelming. The losing 45% is just 5% away from being half of all the people who voted in this election! Belize needs a strong and viable Opposition. This is a vital part of a strong democracy! If the PUP has to regenerate in that role or has to metamorphose into a party with a different name, well, such are the realities of life. On top today, on the bottom tomorrow! How quickly things can change! Too bad that these guys forgot that: “Be careful of how you treat people on the way up, because you will meet the same people on the way down!
Another issue that bears watching is that the SPEAR projection of an 80% voter turnout turned out to be off-base. The actual percentage of eligible voters who cast their ballots was 73%. This is lower than the 80% who voted in 2003 and way lower than the figures for 1998. This has been a fairly consistent pattern not only in Belize, but also in other democracies. Could it be that some citizens are beginning to feel that their votes make little or no difference because the promises that politicians make during a campaign are seldom if ever honored once they assume office?
What never ceases to amaze me is how blind nepotism becomes. Said’s son, Yasser, controlled the campaign strategy for the Belize City Council and Town Board elections. It was an unmitigated disaster! So what did these guys do? They gave him the same responsibility for the strategy used in the general elections. He ran a similar campaign and got his ass kicked for the second time in a row! Power is indeed a life-changing experience, often for the worse! Politics is war, but when you play the race card, you don’t deserve even the slightest bit of sympathy. I also asked those who worked in my area for this election not to smear Tom Morrison and/or his family. I won’t tolerate a smear campaign under any circumstances, and that is one of the reasons why I have promised my family that I will never run for political office. Of course there probably wasn’t any strategy that could have won this election for the PUP. The behavior of their government destroyed their chances.
I will keep pushing for one Constitutional change that is extremely important. That is for Belize to adopt some form of modified proportional representation to replace the first-past-the-post system. Politicians are notoriously reluctant to support any changes that will reduce their ultimate power, but if Prime Minister Dean Oliver Barrow and the UDP brain trust are truly concerned about the legacy they leave, there would be no better way to prove that they are true friends of Belizean democracy.