Belize - Five reasons Johnny Briceño won
Belize has a new prime minister and a government with big spending plans
Juan Antonio (Johnny) Briceño of the center-left People’s United Party (PUP) is the new prime minister after yesterday’s elections. Briceño defeated Patrick Faber of the ruling United Democratic Party (UDP). Prime Minister Dean Barrow, who has ruled the country since 2008 but could not run again due to term limits, has conceded the election.
Corruption concerns. The prime minister's preferred successor, former Minister of Security John Saldivar, was forced to drop out of the race in February after a US corruption trial revealed that he offered to take a bribe in exchange for giving someone citizenship and a passport. The scandal crystallized a general sense of growing corruption by the Barrow government and also threw the UDP campaign into disarray. Patrick Faber was forced to run as a backup candidate, among the factors that harmed his image during the campaign.
Barrow also faced nepotism charges in this election. Barrow’s sister and son both won parliament seats in Belize City yesterday. However, by running family members in the high profile districts, Barrow may have tarnished the party nationwide and ensured that the election was a referendum on his rule rather than giving his party a chance to campaign on a new agenda.
Pandemic. As I wrote last week, Belize has seen a recent spike in coronavirus cases. Briceño spent the final weeks of the campaign hitting the government hard on its failed response, though it did not offer details on how he would manage it differently other than suggesting that Belize would “learn to live with it.”
Recession. The decline in tourism hit Belize harder than many of its Central American neighbors. Even with the international airport reopening last month, restrictions in Belize and the decline in travel globally mean that it will be many months for the country to recover.
Anti-incumbent environment. Belize joins Guyana and Suriname in tossing out their leader this year. While most analysts don’t place those three countries in Latin America, their politics have matched the anti-incumbent wave that has hit North, Central, and South America since 2019.
The storm. Hurricane Eta hit Belize indirectly as a tropical storm, causing flooding and damage. While this clearly wasn’t Barrow’s fault, holding an election immediately after a large natural disaster created additional challenges for the governing party and added to the general sense that the country was heading in the wrong direction.
The PUP plan includes lots of spending promises and no way to pay for them
Briceño takes office today and immediately inherits all the problems of his predecessor: Rising Covid cases, recovery from the tropical storm (with more rain on the way soon), and an economy that needs a jumpstart.
The PUP ran on “Plan Belize” and you can download their 36 page plan for the country here. They promise to stimulate the economy and create jobs while also criticizing the wasteful spending and debt of the Barrow administration. They plan to raise the minimum wage, hire more police officers and increase spending on health to 5% of GDP. They also promise a plot of land for every citizen.
How are they going to pay for it? I’m not sure. Every mention of “tax” in the plan refers to some form of tax cut or tax credit. The only mention of debt is to call for a broader global debt relief compact for small countries impacted by Covid and climate change.
In short, there are a lot of nice promises in the plan that are likely to crash into economic reality very quickly.
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