BELIZE UDP GOVERNMENT OBSTRUCTIVE ABOUT DEMOCRACY BUILDING

UDP FAILING ONE YEAR TEST OF THEIR DEMOCRACY BUILDING INTENTIONS

The problem with our El Caudillo, PM Dean Barrow, is that with his current legal mess, he has TUNNEL VISION and there is nobody with any sense, he can bounce off alternative ideas. Administratively speaking his party is doing okay on infra structure, grants and other things. Everybody is aware of the money shortcomings. Noted, is the better budgeting of available monies, equally to different districts around the nation. That is nation building, even if it is not the optimum solution. Better than what went before, with the majority of tax revenues swallowed by the port of Belize City.

For the voters, Barrow is the only game in town, so to speak and we sympathize with his problems. Certainly we recognize he is OVERWHELMED by the challenges facing him, particularly to do with Ashcroft and the legal stuff. That doesn´t mean we accept his short term thinking on legal issues, trying to solve his legal problems, which take up too much of his time. Given our national money constraints, his nepotism restraining good advice from other estranged lawyers, dictated by his necessary political mafia mentality. What he is currently doing is typical short term solutions, which are bad for democracy building. What he is currently doing legally is taking us backwards. It seems politics is one 5 year term forward and then two 5 year terms ( 10 years ) backwards. This has got to stop. Barrow desperately needs help with the Ashcroft legal problems. How to get it, without bruising his ego and swollen head is the problem. He´s estranged from all the other lawyers, some of which, maybe a few, might even contribute some worthwhile advice, if he wasn´t first and foremost protecting his political turf.

Thats the situation as I see it. How to help BARROW resolve our national issues? He is obviously in OVER HIS HEAD with the Ashcroft mess and because of his short term political TUNNEL VISION, cannot broaden his thinking. We need to get this leader of our country some better legal solutions. Right now he is mired in the mud, up to the axle hubs with limited ideas. I don´t have any solutions to offer, as legal stuff is not my forte.

We are all in this together, and thankfully, Belize is not Bahrain. Or any other despotic ARAB MUSLIM country. Our democracy may not be anything other than allowing us citizens to vote for a mafia gang to run the country once every five years, but it works better than most countries. There is a vast local outcry to better improve our democracy, by broadening the voter participation in cabinet decisions, to do with the direction we are going, the right to do so in legal terms. Both political parties have fought against these developments for decades and denied any dilution of their autocratic power. The writing is on the wall though, from a world sense, and if one of these parties do not see it in their self interest to make PARTICPATORY DEMOCRACY a norm, some of those guys running for office are going to end up getting shot. I myself, as an older man will be long dead by then. Still I hate to see any kind of civil war be the ONLY solution, to changing the mafia gangs called political parties autocratic rule, to a more working,legislation directed democracy.

In that sense, we are currently running a one year TEST of the UDP ability to adapt to changing times. Social media is playing an ever uncontrollable part in building our democracy. The year is divided into quarters and the rule of thumb is; if any quarter ( 3 months ) passes without some legislative change in the structural format in how the government is run politically, by making legislative changes, to put the voters and citizens in control of this government, without having to resort to parades and riots, then the UDP will lose 10 points off their report card per quarter. That said, BEFORE the next national election, we will surely know WHERE THE UDP stand on democracy building for Belize. Already two months are nearly finished of the first quarter of this year and NO LEGISLATION making the structural PARTICIPATION in government by citizens has yet been passed. One more month to go and the UDP will lose 10 points off their performance REPORT CARD for this first quarter, due to apathy, laziness, or unwillingness to share policy making power with the citizens. BY THEIR ACTIONS YOU WILL KNOW THEM.

It´s time to get off the pot, UDP, and start building a broader democracy for Belize. The status quo is unacceptable. Not to say you are not administrating well, we expect that and you get paid very well for doing it. That is not at all what is being measured here. Glenn Tillet came up with a couple of good ideas in a recent article on the bz-culture listserve.