BELIZE POLITICS, - HOW IT WORKS!

BELIZE POLITICS
In the UK, the real role of the political OPPOSITION is taken by the media. Just as it is in Belize on a smaller scale. In the UK, we have a thousand or more newspapers, both small and large, national and local types. In Belize, there are only two newspapers really, that act in any sort of role as an OPPOSITION. That is the REPORTER and the AMANDALA. The Amandala shifts in allegiance to one party or another and is not always reliable. We probably have room in Belize for another independent investigative political newspaper. Sort of a scandal sheet, doing nothing other than watching politicians at work.
The media are the watchdogs of civil society of the body politic, not the OPPOSITION in parliament. While their role is to sell advertising and they do that well. In the UK, certain major newspapers have usurped that role as ACTIVE watchdogs of things politic, in government. We don´t have that kind of media scrutiny in Belize. In the UK, teams of newspaper reporters investigate most sitting CABINET MINISTERS on a regular basis, around the clock in the worst cases, until those bad politicians are exposed. There are even teams of reporters and photographers who act FREELANCE and find it worth their while to do so, writing both articles and supplying photographs of the peccadillos of human nature gone awry among CABINET politicians, writing and photographing, for cash money on commission.
Without the media, either in the UK, or in Belize, we would have little or no controls on the one party, style government for five years, as an elected, one party, dictatorship we experience in Belize. Nor, do scandals of politicians carry the same penalties it would in the UK, with CABINET MINISTER´s caught in the act of improper acts here in Belize yet. Yet politicians of both the UK and Belize, are in it for the most part to get rich in some sort of fashion. Some CABINET MINISTERS have more opportunities and bigger unscrupulous drives, to take more chances to get rich off the opportunities of using government operations, which they control, to feather their retirement plans. In Belize and the UK, it is ONLY the media that can control such illegal, or improper activities, in this continuous running battle
It is the media in both countries under similar political systems that protect civil society from CABINET POLITICIANS, corruption. Without the media, any sort of control of government depredations by the winning party politicians would be impossible. Unfortunately, the Belize population and advertising base is still too small, to foster and encourage a more active media watch of the actions of politicians and here in Belize, they still get away with a lot of irregularities in politics. One could only wish the media were stronger in Belize.