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Belize Committed to Uruguay For OAS Sec Gen Elections
Fri, August 29, 2014
And keeping it on diplomacy, the Prime Minister also discussed the candidacy of Belize's Ambassador Nestor Mendez for the post of OAS Deputy Secretary General. It's news because earlier this week Mendez explained to us that Belize is supporting the Uruguayan candidate for Secretary General largely because his opponent is a Guatemalan. To hear Mendez's characterization, having a Guatemalan elevated to the post of Secretary General would have a chilling effect on the confidence building process between Belize and Guatemala which is being facilitated by the OAS. The Prime Minister, though, was more circumspect in his assessment. Here's how he put it today:..

Jules Vasquez
"Obviously if they take that over then, the whole confidence building, everything is at a standstill."

Prime Minister Dean Barrow
"No, not necessarily. Their candidate won hopes would be able to act professionally as secretary general of the OAS, it doesn't become Guatemala's secretary general of the OAS. He is a Guatemalan national. If he wins, we have asked for and received assurances of the support of Central America for Belize's candidacy for deputy secretary general."

Jules Vasquez
"Guatemala included?"

Prime Minister Dean Barrow
"Yes, at the last SICA meeting. We were ask whether in turn we could support Guatemala's candidacy for the number one spot and I was obliged to say quite candidly that events had already overtaken that because we had made a deal with Uruguay I think it is to support their candidate and in turn they would support candidate. My colleagues, the Central American heads ask if I could give some thought to the possibility of changing our position and I indicated that I am man of honor and a man of my word and so that would be extremely difficult and there is where it was left off. So I don't know that we will go out there and campaign against the Guatemalan candidacy, in fact I can tell you we won't, but we are busily working to secure our own candidacy and to support the Uruguayan candidate."

And turning now to domestic issues, for the first time in a while, the Government got to do some chest beating about the performance of the economy. As we told you earlier this week GDP growth in the second quarter was an impressive 8.7%. That's after negative growth in the first quarter, and a measly 1.5% growth last year. Today the Prime Minister said he'll take that 8.7% for this quarter even if it can't hold up all year round:..

Prime Minister Dean Barrow
"In terms of the here and now, that second quarter growth is phenomenal and so I am very pleased indeed."

Jules Vasquez
"We won't have 8.7 for the remaining two quarters."

Prime Minister Dean Barrow
"But how do you know that? This is it, you are getting into speculation now and you may well be right, but again you may not. I think when you look at the nature historically of the performance of the economy during the course of a particular year the 3rd quarter can I think be expected not to be as strong as the 2nd quarter. But then the last quarter can certainly be expected to be stronger than the 3rd quarter, so in the end I am hopeful that it will all even out and we will finish with growth that is certainly in excess of the projections."

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