Barrow declares victory for the people; protest still on
As word of the Prime Minister’s plan to withdraw the Universal Health Services motion spread throughout the country, many wondered how this latest development would be received by the Opposition and what impact, if any, the move would have on the United Democratic Party’s plans to once again protest in Belmopan. Late this afternoon, U.D.P. Leader Dean Barrow maintained that while the P.M.’s decision has brought the nation a sense of relief, his party remains undeterred in its campaign for a change of government.
Dean Barrow, Leader of the Opposition
“We are happy that this motion has been beaten back by the power of the people. We really feel that the way there was a coming together of all the forces in this nation to oppose this loan motion was inspirational and so certainly there is a sense of relief, a sense of victory, a sense of joy, a sense of celebration. However, we are not convinced that the Prime Minister by his statement has not left the door open. We see nothing there that says categorically that it is not just that he won’t proceed tomorrow, that he will never bring this motion back. And so we are positive that we still need to proceed with our plans tomorrow. We need for there to be an exclamation point behind the victory that has been secured and we also need to continue with our call for the Prime Minister to fix the date for fresh elections. He has been beaten back at least temporarily for now. Look at what it took, the near disintegration of his Cabinet, the near disintegration of his government, a kind of social chaos with the Chamber having to announce last night that it had voted for a shutdown and to withhold taxes. There has to be a political price for the Prime Minister to pay. He’s now been shown by this united effort to have been grossly wrong. There is not a word of apology in his presentation; there is no expression of regret. All that, as well as the fact that the wreckage that he is trying to put back together now in consequence of all that has gone on, must mean that he’s—to put it mildly—at least a lame duck Prime Minister. All that obliges us, convinces us, that we must continue to press for him to fix the date for the next general elections.”
Janelle Chanona
This afternoon I managed to interview the Prime Minister and he spoke of deferring the motion indefinitely and expressed the proposal of exploring what the Chamber of Commerce had brought to him, leaving the U.H.S. in the private sector but perhaps with some element of government subsidy. Would that be an arrangement that you would be in agreement with?”
Dean Barrow
“I would have to see the contours of that arrangement, but what strikes me is that if the Prime Minister talked about deferring the motion indefinitely, it’s just what I feared. That is not the same as saying this is cancelled, this is dead and buried. All that is happening is that he is saying, we will explore now the possibility of some kind of private sector take over of U.H.S., but he insists earlier on in his statement that debt to the Belize Bank is due, is owing, and must be honoured. Clearly, what that is implying is that if these exploratory efforts to get some commercial entity or company to buy the hospital, if these efforts fail, he is making it clear that there is every possibility that he can bring back this kind of a motion. That is not satisfactory to us, we need, as I said, to preside over burial rights, funeral rights for this motion and we have not gotten that far and we are not going to rest until we do get that far.”
Janelle Chanona
“Part of the Prime Minister’s comments as well include that this issue has been distorted immensely by the Opposition. Do you accept that?”
Dean Barrow
“That is exactly what I mean, that the Prime Minister still does not get it. He refuses to acknowledge that the country was united, is united against his motion. How can he—in a sense he gives us too much credit. This was not just an Opposition thing. The stake that was driven through his heart last night by the Chamber is proof positive of that. Why is the Prime Minister continuing to say that he is the only one in step, that he is the right and everybody else is wrong? It is that kind of an attitude that tells me that there can be no rest for the U.D.P. until the Prime Minister is removed from office.”
Janelle Chanona
“What do you tell you supporters at your rally tomorrow morning?”
Dean Barrow
“We tell them that while we have won this tremendous victory that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance and exactly what I have been saying, that there is a possibility that this can come back and that in any event there is now a larger goal, which I suppose was present all along, the Prime Minister has lost the trust of the people, he has lost all credibility with the nation, with all sectors of the society. Such a man cannot claim any longer to have a mandate, such a man cannot claim any longer to have legitimacy, he needs to fix a date for the general elections.”
Barrow told us that tomorrow he is expecting nothing less than the biggest crowd of protestors ever to appear in the nation’s capital.
