The PUP’s #planBelize – signed, sealed, delivered?

By Aaron Humes: The People’s United Party (PUP) believes it has delivered a master stroke in the release of its #planBelize manifesto – bite-size chunks doled out on social media over weeks and months, necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

But the whole thing is now out – except for the tourism portfolio to be announced next week – and as their candidates did in 1998, the party gathered its Team 31 in Belize City at the Biltmore Plaza Hotel to put pen to paper and hold themselves to this new contract with Belizeans, to be executed if they have a majority of seats after elections in two weeks and a few days’ time.

At its center is the creating and saving of 50 thousand new jobs through a stimulus package for the economy. But there is much more, as presented by the party’s standard bearers, now candidates, whose slogan boasts, “Everybody fi win.”

Kevin Bernard, Orange Walk East: “The next P.U.P. government will make sure that every citizen owns a piece of land. We will prioritize first time land ownership for women, and young families.”

Oscar Mira, Belmopan: “With a poverty rate of fifty percent, we have become a breeding ground for crime so arresting crime and ensuring national security, ensuring safety at home and in the streets will be our priority. We will increase the Belize Police Department to 4,000 officers, continue to train police in criminal justice, forensics, and community policing.”

Michel Chebat, Cayo North: “Our foreign policy will be geared towards advancing our development. To this end, we will urgently negotiate trade agreement with Mexico, Europe, Central America, Africa, Asia, with a view to opening new markets for our products and investments. We will rally support for debt relief, and to help recover from the coronavirus, and to help us mitigate against climate change.”

Andre Perez, Belize Rural South: “We will secure women’s access to affordable and quality healthcare, create greater empowerment of women through the creation of economic activities, increase women access to ownership of affordable land and promote women in science and technology.”

Gilroy Usher Sr., Port Loyola: “We will re-establish the lands survey department, respect communal land rights to ancestral lands, respect the environment on how we use our land by promoting reforestation and mangrove replanting.”

Oscar Requeña, Toledo West: “Our education policy will focus on the following 3 areas: free education from pre-school to junior college, early childhood education and development, leadership, administration and teacher training, special education.”

Paul Thompson, Albert: “Don’t you think it’s about time for us to mobilize the energy in our Belizean youth? In the PUP, we say sports [are] better for life, and it is about time we all do more for our youth.”

The party’s deputy leader, Lake Independence’s Cordel Hyde, readily admits that what they have proposed is bold and occasionally daring. But to reverse Said Musa’s classic maxim to his opponents, those who are skeptical should watch themselves – and watch the future government. “Watch us prioritize what’s important. Watch us put people before things. Watch how we change how we think about ourselves. Watch how we make the impossible possible.”

And the man who aspires to lead the charge, Orange Walk Central’s John Briceño, says it is time: “We offer sensible solutions because we understand both the people and the problems. Indigenous and ingenious, this manifesto places the highest premium on radical social transformation. Belizeans must as a fundamental right have the chance at a wholesome education, a job at a livable wage, basic healthcare from cradle to grave and a life unthreatened by violence and crime.”

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