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UDP Launch Their 2012 - 2017 Manifesto
posted (February 22, 2012)
Elections are two weeks away - and the UDP launched its manifesto today. Unlike the PUP, which departed from its own tradition and used its air-cooled headquarters for the launch, the UDP - as is the custom - had its launch at a big hotel conference room, "under ice."

But just like Independence Hall, it was standing room only - as party supporters filled the venue.

What they got was a manifesto that looked good but didn't promise too much. Party Leader Dean Barrow filled in the blanks well enough for them though - with a few special treats he kept in the bag - here's how his "big reveal" went:

Jules Vasquez Reporting

The hall was decked out in red - supporters crowded into the available seating and made it standing room only while the 31 candidates, all in their red ties, filled the stage.

It was an event designed to impress for its discipline, dazzle and uniformity. Party Leader Dean Barrow said it is organized around three principles:

Dean Barrow - Party Leader, UDP
"Pro-people and pro-poor, number 1, honesty and accountability in government, number 2, and number 3, sovereign muscular nationalism on the part of the Belizean people."

The manifesto itself - called an action plan - is also impressive as a document; it's 26 pages long with 130 promises - but half of the document is dedicated to the party's accomplishments over the past four years.

As a document, the manifesto is more impressive than the PUP's visually - but in terms of promises there's not that much that jumps out at you.



Eden Martinez - UDP Candidate for Toledo West
"We are pledging, and we are committing to providing 15,000 house lots, and farmland will be granted to new first time land owners. The next UDP government will free up voice over internet protocol to residential LAN line customers in the next few months to be eventually extended to mobile services."

John Saldivar - UDP Candidate for Belmopan
"And your next United Democratic Party Government will establish an insurance guarantee program for exporters."

And if those sound slightly tepid - that's because the goodies did not make it into the manifesto:

Dean Barrow - Party Leader, UDP
"Not everything that we propose to do, and what we can talk to you about at this juncture, would have found its way into the manifesto."

And so the best stuff finds itself outside the books - there are more loan write-offs:

Dean Barrow
"And we are going turn immediately after we are re-elected to the DFC mortgage loans. And we're not just going to concentrate exclusively on writing off mortgage loans. We are also going to be writing off student loans at the Development Finance Cooperation."

And relief from crushing gas prices:

Dean Barrow
"The United Democratic Party will, within the shortest possible time - just so long as it takes to actually construct this thing - build a local oil refinery. We will turn Belizean crude into gasoline, diesel and kerosene, and sell the locally refined fuels to the Belizean people for lower, cheaper, and stable prices."

And Barrow said he feels that their record doesn't need too much promotion. He says it speaks for itself:

Dean Barrow
"The people of this country have seen the work that we have done, are with our record and know that one good term will produce another."

And the process of deciding whether they do get that second term will be overseen by the OAS. Yesterday in Washington, the Secretary General of the Organization of American States Jose Miguel Insulza and the Permanent Representative of Belize to the hemispheric organization, Ambassador Nestor Mendez, signed an agreement for an Electoral Observation Mission to monitor the double election on March 7.

Ambassador Mendez explained that the presence of the missions has evolved into an acceptable imprimatur of a free, fair, and transparent exercise of democracy in the countries of the Americas."

Leading the observer group to Belize will be Ambassador Frank Almaguer, former U.S. Ambassador to Honduras, and former OAS Secretary for Administration and Finance. The team arrives a week before the elections.

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