Today, the opposition PUP swarmed into Belize City.  The plan to send an emphatic message to the Barrow Administration by blanketing the country’s largest population centre in blue.  Now, General Elections were held less than a year ago – and some might say it is too early to push so hard for a regime change – but the PUP feels that between the Danny Mason debacle, the BTL compensation, the Immigration Scandal and everything else in between – the Barrow Administration is vulnerable.  The party poured its supporters and its resources into the City today to build political momentum out of public resentment.  Did it work? Â  7News was on the ground to gauge the pressure and Daniel Ortiz reports:…

PUP supporters from all over the country converged this morning at the Constitution Park, blocking the area off from its usual morning traffic.

Specialized police teams were on guard, and the officers watched vigilantly from a distance, making sure that there would be no civil unrest,

But, in this demonstration there was no need for that. The PUP’s Elected Representatives appeared to be well in control of the crowds, making sure that they knew that this was supposed to send a strong message, but not to cause civil unrest.

At a little after 10, they moved off, marching through Orange Street, down Albert Street, then Regent Street, across the swing bridge.

There was actually a break in the crowd led by defiant street activists Raymond Rivers and Giovanni Brackett – who led the bulk of the crowd all the way down Albert Street.

Some held up signs like this one of Immigration Minister Godwin Hulse, and this one of House Speaker Michael Peyrefitte.

The message was clear about what they thought of these men in high office. But, in politics numbers are what matters, and these pictures captured by a PUP drone showed the “Save Our Countryâ€￾ March at its full strength as they crossed the Swing Bridge.

After about an hour of moving through the midmorning heat, the PUP crowd filed into the BTL Park; they were waiting for their leaders to start taking shots at the Government for the different scandals that the Barrow Government has been embroiled in.

For Opposition Leader John Briceño, the message of the morning had been clearly sent to the Barrow Government.

Hon. John Briceño - Leader of the Opposition
"We are representation from the Corozal district all the way to the Toledo district. We have a report, the Auditor General's report that has clearly demonstrated that there has been corruption within the UDP government and the people are now saying enough. The Prime Minister can't continue to defend and protect his ministers; no less than 13 former and present ministers have been implicated in that report. The Prime Minister cannot try to discredit that report, it is his Auditor General that gave that report; he needs to listen, he needs to study and he needs to take action."

Hon. Eamon Courtenay - PUP Senator
"The position is very simple all of us can look as lawyers at the reports and it is manifest that there is irregularities amounting to wrong doing; but our opinion are irrelevant we want a fair process. The Prime Minister for example talks about natural justice being denied to people who have been named in the report. There is a fundamental role of natural justice that a person cannot be a judge in his own cords and here it is the Prime Minister, here it is at Godwin Hulse who have need named in the report are saying they want to appoint their own judges, they want their own cabinet colleagues to be judges to investigate themselves. They are setting up not only a breach of natural justice but a violation of the constitution that says they should not put themselves in conflict of interest. It's a scandal and an outrage."

Hon. John Briceño - Leader of the Opposition
"We live in a democracy, they have a constitutional, they got a mandate of 5 years for last year and we need to respect that but what we want to do is put pressure on them that they are either going to fix up, clean up the corruption, get the economy going, stop the victimisation and create a different Belize, change direction. They are either going to do that or we are going to put pressure on them for them to do something about it."

Daniel Ortiz
"Now sir perception plays a very important role, a powerful role and whether it is correct or not the perception I have been picking up from is bwai da a bunch of corrupted individuals the complain about a bunch of corrupted individuals. There seems to be a bit of scandal fatigue."

Hon. John Briceño - Leader of the Opposition
"I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. We have been voted out of office since 2008, we have paid a dear price for some of the errors that we did whilst we were in government but we were not cowards. Our government called for a Senate investigation, our government had 3 social partners, one from the UDP and one from the PUP and we had it out. We had no other than Godwin Hulse who was the chairman of the Senate committee why can't the Prime Minister do the same?"

Hon. Julius Espat - Deputy Leader, PUP Western Caucus
"This fight is not a PUP fight. This fight is a fight for all Belizeans."

Reporter
"What happens after today sir is it a one day showing?"

Hon. John Briceño - Leader of the Opposition
"No, no, no, this is just the start. What we are doing now is that we are going to continue to meet with the social partners, with the churches, with the unions, with the private sector and any group that is prepared to listen to us and to tell them join us; let's forget party politics right now."

And so how many came out?  Well, the PUP claims seven thousand, but for the sake of accuracy, we did a painstaking review of the videotape with a manual head count and came up with a maximum of 1,500 on Albert Street.  A few other busses joined later, so we put today’s crowd at a maximum of two thousand.