But, in order to convince the electorate to support their Party, the PUP and PM John Briceno made quite a hefty bit of promises to Belizeans, such as first-time land ownership, housing, and free education. We asked Deputy PM Hyde about when Belizeans can expect the new government to deliver on those promises. Here's that conversation:
Hon. Cordel Hyde - DPM/Minister of Natural Resources
"I wish we had started on Thursday or Friday or this morning, but the truth of the matter is this afternoon we are going to have our first cabinet meeting and it is there that we will get a first report on the real state of this economy. I'm worried that we are really badly off. But we will find that out exactly this afternoon and then that will inform us as to how quickly we can proceed on lots of our manifesto some of our promises. Perhaps a lot of them demand money, but there are lots of other things that probably don't demand money, but we are going to need to move on. We are going to have to send a very strong message to the electorate that we are about serious business, that we are not here as kings. We are really here as street workers, we are really here as we are starting from the lowest level. Our ministers have to take that attitude. We can't go there and think that oh, we've been in the wilderness for 13 years and so now we are going to start living big and we're going to get the fancy vehicles and live the life like those previous ministers. That cannot be the approach. The approach has to be serious business. It has to be all about work, all about what's right for Belize and if things are as bad as we fear, then we are going to have to lead by example. We going to have to set the right tone and we are going to have to tell people that whatever sacrifice that we ask our people to take, it's going to be shared sacrifice. It has to be a together thing, not an individual thing. You can't have separate creatures up here and everybody else struggling down here. We have to be all in it as one people no matter where we come from, the ethnicity, religious background - no matter what. It has to be about one Belize and what's best for this country and so I'm excited to get going on all the things we have to do, because you know that there are needed. We didn't just pull things from the sky. They were real."
