What are the U.D.P.’s Chances in Upcoming Municipals?

Dean Barrow

The upcoming municipal elections are set for March 2024, and both major political parties are kicking into full gear to prepare for campaign season ahead.  But what are the United Democratic Party’s chances this time around, having been routed in the last municipals in 2021.  That’s what we asked former Party Leader Dean Barrow, who shared his thoughts on the likelihood of the U.D.P. putting up a strong fight in the looming elections.

Dean Barrow, Former Party Leader, U.D.P.

“I would say that I think they’ve got a fighting chance and I don’t know that I would have said that a year ago or six months ago.  And I take nothing away from them, it must be that they are doing a number of things that are right.  But again, remember the old saw in politics, people don’t vote a new crowd in, they vote the old crowd out, and I think that a huge reason for the UDP‘s prospects with respect to the municipal elections, looking greatly improved from where they were six or eight months ago, has to do with the government.  We also know that a constant in Belizean politics and perhaps politics generally is that when you are dealing, as we will be in March, with municipal elections the campaign is not about municipal issues.  The campaign is not about streets and drains, the campaign is about the cost of living.  The campaign is about Portico, the campaign is about corruption, the campaign is about this sense of the government pulling in several different directions, the ministers.  The campaign is about the perception that each minister is looking after his individual interests and that each minister carves out his person fiefdom and so there is no kind of coherence and there is not a leader who is strong enough.”