So in November we all witnessed history. I’m not just talking about the fact that an awesome black guy was elected President of the USofA. What I mean is that for the first time in our lifetime, my generation actually felt that we had a stake in the election, that we could make a difference, and that our voices actually mattered for once. For the first time in our lifetime, young people were politically active in droves and played a vital roll in the election of the guy we wanted rather than just staying at home and then complaining for four years. Awesome. However, after two years of folks giving out empty promises like they were free pencils on Red Ribbon Week, November couldn’t have come sooner. The campaigning went about a month too long, and by the end I think we were all a little bit burnt out. I was glad for election time to be over. Boy was I wrong.
On March 4th, Belize had nationwide municipal elections and the politicians have been out for the past month with more of the same promises. Just like the Congressional elections back home, the municipal elections are important in their own right but are much more useful as a national political barometer. The two major parties since independence 25 years ago are the PUP (People’s United Party) and the UDP (United Democratic Party). The PUP was the first political party in Belize and though it played an immensely important part in the struggle for independence, it likes to tell people that it was the sole force behind the independence movement. The head of the party at the time, and the first Prime Minister was George Price, the Father of the Nation. I guess he was kind of like our George Washington. Was he the single most important person in the independence era? Yes. Would Belize still be a colony today without him? Who knows. Anyway, the PUP doesn’t let people forget it’s place in Belizean history. The two party system here isn’t really broken along the traditional lines of leftist or rightist. Both parties claim to be for the poor and there is no discernable party platform. The UDP actually only seems to be there as an alternative option for people to tell the PUP that they feel like a change.
That change came last year in the General Election when Dean Barrow was elected Prime Minister after ten years of PUP power and, more important, blatant corruption. Former PM, Said Musa, and his top advisor are now under house arrest pending corruption charges that they funneled $10 million of aid into Belize Bank funds. What Dean Barrow inherited was crumbling infrastructure, millions in debt (not easy for a country like Belize to pay off), and a ton of hopes that he could set Belize on the right path and untarnish its image abroad. Now, a year in, the UDP got to find out what people thought of how they were handling the situation.
The political atmosphere is strikingly similar to that of the US. The PUP is playing the part of the Republicans, the broken former power that has no discernable leadership but is trying to be as opportunistic as possible by pointing out all of the things that the administration isn’t doing yet or is doing wrong. The so-called “old guard” of Musa and Price was actually suing the new party head, Johnny Briceño, for financial control of the party’s assets. My favorite PUP add was complaining how much food prices have gone up in the last year and blaming it on Barrow, despite the hike in food prices worldwide (has anyone seen how much Hannity is blaming Obama for the dive in stock prices? Talk about opportunists!) and how little work has been done in infrastructure. Dean is playing the part of Obama simply saying, “look what was handed to us and look what we’ve already done so far.”
Plus all the pageantry, oh the pageantry. The PUP came out with a brand new, sharp logo with the same appeal for simple symbol as the Obama “O”. They also hired a couple Punta Rock artists to record songs that were nowhere near as subtle as will.i.am. “The UDP has got to go. Dey doin nothing for the country man.” Seriously. PG has had a PUP mayor for six years but has been wrestling with a UDP town council for a year or two now. That means that nothing has really gotten done around town and the few things that have been done have had folks on each side taking credit. But for the last month there have been countless rallies and debates blaming each other and praising themselves, making promises, and arguing over such nonsensical things as the merits of a Tilapia farm in the area (in order to criticize the other’s plan for a farm, one candidate claimed that Tilapia would eat the other fish in the area). Basically, they’ve all been making different versions of the same promises “less crime, more jobs, rebuild the sports complex” and then criticizing each other for each other’s versions.
No one really knew how the elections were going to go, though we had our guesses. Most people here are staunchly for their party and wouldn’t leave if they were held at gunpoint. The PUP organizers were almost rabid in their attempt to regain prominence for their party. The mayor was going from house to house giving out drums in an attempt to buy people’s votes. The UDP displayed cautious optimism. A new party, the People’s National Party, came out of PG this year with a young mayoral candidate and a following of disenchanted PUP devotees. One guy was running as an independent who ran last year and got 35 votes nationwide. We had a mock election at Claver School last week, which would be a good indicator since we figured most kids would vote like their parents. UDP won handily, but the PNP got a surprising turnout, which speaks to its resonance with younger people and hopes for the future.
So, March 4th came and went and at about midnight the UDP caravan was going around town honking in victory. The PUP got romped. PG got a UDP mayor and town council. Throughout Belize, not a single PUP mayor was elected and only three PUP town councilors were elected IN THE WHOLE COUNTRY. If that isn’t a mandate I don’t know what is. The election was actually close in PG, but the PUP lost just enough votes at the hands of the PNP to get pooched. In Belmopan, the PUP came in third to another third party, the VIP (Voice in the Interest of the People). So I guess the people haven’t forgotten the corruption and cronyism of the last decade quite as easily as we all thought they would. That’s a good sign for good governance and a terrible sign for the PUP.
