… But the big story is that V.I.P. topples P.U.P. in Belmopan

One of the biggest stories to come out of Wednesday’s elections is about the inroads made by the V.I.P. that fared better than the People’s United Party, but not enough to unseat the incumbent U.D.P. It is the fourth effort by the V.I.P. in the nation’s capital, and this time the number of votes surged despite a late start, little financing and no machinery except for the foot soldiers. When the votes were tallied, the V.I.P. edged the P.U.P. five thousand one hundred and fourteen to five thousand eighty-seven and the U.D.P. trounced the P.U.P. two to one to poll a total of twelve thousand eight hundred and twenty votes. Voter turn out was forty-eight percent.

Jose Sanchez, Reporting
Belmopan was eerily quiet and the elections were peaceful. The United Democratic Party team, headed by incumbent Mayor Simeon Lopez, won all seats by the hundreds. Lopez was confident, but he was well aware that there were visible changes, not only with voter turnout, but also with whom the people voted for.

Jose Sanchez
“The political landscape for Belmopan has changed. Do you concede that your main competitor in the next election will be the V.I.P.?”

Simeon Lopez, Belmopan Mayor
“It could very well be. I could very well be. If the P.U.P. does not get reorganized and really act as a mass party the V.I.P. will definitely overtake them. And if the U.D.P. just relax and sleeps then probably it will be a different ball game in 2012 but I don’t intend for that to happen.”

The campaign for The Vision Inspired by the People began in February. Their yellow shirts were few compared to the sea of Election Day’s typical red and blue. But V.I.P. managed to collectively achieve more votes than the People’s United Party.

Simeon Lopez
“It does look after yesterdays’ results that it is the V.I.P. but I believe that the People’s United Party could not get their voters. People just refused to come out. Our voting population here in Belmopan is more than six thousand and I’m sure some of ours stayed home as well. As I said, the number of votes I got was just below two thousand. The performance on the P.U.P. in getting their voters out was terrible. In other words, their machinery was not there. I contributed that mainly to the fact that the real P.U.P.s in Belmopan were not visible. Anthony Chanona was nowhere to be found. Joaquin Cawich came out to vote but he did not affiliate himself with anybody. So right now as of yesterday, the V.I.P. is the, well I can’t say the mass party, but the P.U.P. would be the third party in Belmopan.”

This Thursday morning, the V.I.P., was conducting a Post mortem on the elections. Though no candidate was elected, they were jubilant, and felt victorious, not defeated.

Hubert Enriquez, V.I.P. Mayoral Candidate
“I believe this victory that we achieved in Belmopan is one that started many years ago. We didn’t run a couple months ago, we have been running for the past nine years when this whole movement started. It’s actually been given momentum and this time around we got more votes. With our involvement with the community, we’ve now reached the point where we actually cover the P.U.P. Today we will be having a victory rally to celebrate that occasion. They are in fact the third party. We have actually gotten more votes than the P.U.P. in the elections so we are going to be the persons now to challenge the present administration here in Belmopan.”

V.I.P. Campaign Manager, Patrick Rogers, says they will not go away.

Patrick Rogers, Campaign Manager, V.I.P.
“The first resolution we took was to commit to fielding a full slate, guaranteed in Belmopan and hopefully in the entire country; all nine municipalities. That commitment is there so I assure you we will be working for the next three years finding those people who didn’t anything to go vote for at this last election. That is a direct result of the mistrust that people have in our entire electoral system in Belize. The fact that they fear not receiving resources at their municipal level if they were to put in a government at the local level that isn’t of the color with national, resources won’t be coming their way. That is a terrible thing for people to have to fear, going to the polls. Our vision is that we’ll take them down one at a time. We’ve taken down the P.U.P. in Belmopan, we expect that trend to happen in the rest of the municipalities come 2012. And then certainly we’ll be going after the U.D.P. who as the incumbent has the resources of the government to work with to mobilize their supporters. So we’re going to be doing things a little bit differently now with the V.I.P. team.”

John Briceño, Leader of the Opposition
“It’s too early for anyone to be making such claims because again, when you look at the numbers—and I haven’t had the exact numbers at this time—the difference between the V.I.P. and the P.U.P. wasn’t much. But we also recognize that we have a lot of work to do in Belmopan that the persons that are in leadership in Belmopan, they have retired from politics or are no longer active in politics; one. Secondly, there continues to be an internal struggle within the P.U.P. in Belmopan. And thirdly, we’re bringing in new people in Belmopan and when you bring in new people it will take more time for them to start to build over. The P.U.P. is a resilient party. We have a proud history and I am confident once we put time and the effort, I am sure that we will turn it around and that we will shortly be able to claim victory in the Garden City.”

Simeon Lopez
“The only problem is that, as you said, they are going to be on me like sharks, I appreciate that. That’s what we need, we are here to serve the people. But they haven’t been doing that since 2006-2009, we haven’t been hearing anything from them until election came close. You know the voters in Belmopan, especially Belmopan proper, are going to split their votes. We did have a number of split votes.”

And one of the sharks who will be vigilant, is the V.I.P.’s Paul Morgan. Morgan received one thousand and eighty votes, which is more than any P.U.P. candidate received. He wasted no time to take newly elected city council to task.

Paul Morgan, V.I.P.
“The issue of transparency is built into our laws. We’ve been trying to make the City Council understand that we must follow the law. The law stipulates that Town Council meetings must be open to the public. Of course, as I was pointed to yesterday one of the councillors told me except if the mayor feels that it should be closed. That is an exception but it seems to me that the exception has become the rule in Belmopan and all over the country. So right now, being on national television, I would like to call on the Prime Minister to be proactive, to look at his council—the council that represents his party—to adhere to the law. It is a good law, it was built for the better running of the City Council and if we can’t have these Town Council meetings open then there is much opportunity to hide issues and to hide the doings of the council and when that happens that’s when corruption starts. All I would like to do is, with love, tell them it is for your own benefit to open the Town council meetings.”

Hubert Enriquez
“The whole question of the openness and transparency we speak about, we are going to challenge those issues. We are going to be the watch dogs. This victory has really made us feel very good about ourselves and we are certainly going to take that victory which is that people what to see change a, more active V.I.P., a V.I.P. in your face if you like, and that’s what you’re going to see from us.”

It is possible that during the next Belmopan CitCo Campaign, people might ask “will you vote for red or yellow?” Reporting for News Five, Jose Sanchez.