Opposition boycott affronts Constitution, says P.M.

With the Opposition involved in an indefinite boycott of the National Assembly, the Government side could not resist the opportunity to chastise their opponents… Both the Prime Minister and his deputy claimed to take the matter very seriously.

Manuel Esquivel, Prime Minister

“I wish I could say it was merely silly. I’m afraid it’s more serious than that. Because the opposition, over the last few months, have given every indication that they not only intend to disrespect but also to dismantle the constitutional institutions that have been set up to protect people’s rights. That is the legislature and the courts of this land. Now this is compounded by the fact they are talking about some kind of people’s assembly. People’s assembly appointed by which people and representing which people? Are the majority of Belizeans who support the United Democratic Party involved in this people’s assembly or is it a P.U.P. people’s assembly? Is that an indication of where they may be headed should they ever become government down the road if they had the strength to change our Constitution to abolish these institutions which were set up to protect people’s rights and replace them by these political kangaroo courts as it were?”

Dean Barrow, Deputy Prime Minister

“I think that precisely because the Constitution of this country provides for the opposition to play a formal role in the proceeding of the National Assembly and because people elected the individual representative to represent them particularly in the National Assembly the staying away from the National Assembly by the opposition is irresponsible, is in violation of the spirit certainly of their constitutional obligations. I made the point that we all understand that in the cut and thrust of politics you walk out of a meeting, you stay away from another meeting in order to make a political point, but to maintain a continuing boycott seems to me to be the height of irresponsibility and an abdicating of the mandate that the people gave to them as members of the opposition which mandate requires them to serve.”

Manuel Esquivel

“Peoples assemblies are legendary in the communist world. They still exist in communist China and in Cuba where it is only one party present and where the people have no voice. Yet they call themselves peoples assemblies and where the party merely determines what it wants to do and rules the country on that basis. I think this is a clear indication of the thinking of the P.U.P.”

Barrow called opposition leader Said Musa’s plans to hold a number of “People’s Assemblies” an idea rooted in communist ideology.