Barrow: ?call new elections?
Today none of the combatants in the P.U.P. civil war were talking to the media although a press conference by the seven samurai has been tentatively scheduled for tomorrow.
One man who was only too happy to comment, however, was Leader of the Opposition Dean Barrow, who called the resignations "the most fascinating development in Belize’s political history since independence".
Dean Barrow, Leader of the Opposition
?We feel that it has mortally wounded the government. We do not see that, the government can long continue in office, in view of what has happened today.?
Patrick Jones
? The resignation of seven ministers from the cabinet; he has a whole list of back benchers that can fill those vacancies…?
Dean Barrow, Leader of the Opposition
?Oh yes, he can in fact appoint a new cabinet. But remember that the seven constituted at the time they resigned, more than half of the serving cabinet. When something like that takes place, and when in fact among the seven members of your cabinet to resign is your Deputy Prime Minister, politically there is no real space in which to manoeuvre. Constitutionally, you would be able to get away with merely replacing them by back benchers. But in terms of parliamentary conventions, in terms of constitutional conventions, you do not recover from a body blow of that nature. And the honourable thing to do–the moral thing to do in those circumstances is to dissolve the national assembly and call fresh elections.?
?While we understand that the Government will resist the call for fresh elections in the short term, we feel that in the medium terms at the very most, it will have to give in to the demands; for its own sake and for the sake of the wellbeing of the nation. You cannot be in government with a fractured party. You have to clear the wreckage and start afresh. That I think is going to be the internal logic, the internal dynamic that as well as the external dynamic will oblige the government sooner rather than later to call fresh elections.?
?We would like to hear perhaps a little more from the ministers that have resigned–as to how they expect to position themselves in the future. In other words as of now, there has been no suggestion from them that they are prepared to resign even from the House of Representatives and in the case of Senator Courtenay, from the Senate. But even ahead of getting that kind of signal from them, we will start immediately with a call for the government to seek a fresh mandate. We are saying that you cannot have a crisis of this nature occur; you cannot plunge your own party into this sort of a fix without your being obliged to try to see your way clear by renewing your mandate if in fact the people are prepared to do that for you.?
Patrick Jones
?Who ultimately benefits from all this? The P.U.P, the U.D.P or the nation??
Dean Barrow, Leader of the Opposition
?I think the nation, because, the cry for reform has now become unstoppable. And with this move by the ministers there is no way in my view any government, whether this rump Government, this truncated Government that’s left or a new Government, there is no way any government will able for long to resist what has not been punctuated, this cry for reform. So in the final analysis I think that it is the nation that benefits.?
The U.D.P. is planning to stage a mass demonstration in the near future.
