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Tourism Minister Anthony Mahler also took the media to task over reports suggesting that one million dollars or more was spent on Sunday’s PUP Belize City convention. Mahler described that narrative as misleading and questioned the basis on which such a figure was being circulated. He argued that political conventions do carry significant expenses, including transportation, campaign materials, food and the mobilisation of supporters, but insisted that claims about the amount spent must be supported by evidence. Mahler spoke about the cost of organising and contesting conventions and rejected the suggestion that Sunday’s event carried a million-dollar price tag.
Anthony Mahler, Area Representative Pickstock: “I think it’s a disservice when you spew what I will call nonsense in millions of dollars being spent. That is an irresponsible approach from the media and I will tell you straight that if I spent $1500 on that day it was a lot. Now conventions cost money yes but if you have a thousand t-shirt out there at $12 that’s $12,000 how did reach $2 million, how did you reach a million dollars?”
Reporter: The banners, there’s way much more than just that you have to mobilize people, fuel, it cannot be $1,500 sir.
Anthony Mahler, Area Representative Pickstock: “I’m not saying that, I’m saying what I spent on that day just to give people for food and so. And obviously there’s going to be a cost to everything. You have to have people in your shirts yes but it’s not what you think because it’s a delegate convention. So it’s not as costly as you think. What the work that we did leading up to the convention is important, the alliances that were created were important. And we held those blocks tightly knitted together and that’s what delivered Eluide. Listen to me that young man worked sixteen hours a day, I saw him many days. He and his team sixteen hours a day and campaigned and spoke to delegates. If they weren’t given the opportunity to meet delegates they found a way to find as many of them as possible and that was a sprint. That was Marion Jones type sprint, that wasn’t a marathon. You had three weeks and you had to go and so to me it’s a great disservice to go out there and say millions of dollars were spent. It is impossible. Yes money was spent.”
Reporter: Thousands.
Anthony Mahler, Area Representative Pickstock: “Yeah I mean I can’t say because I’m not the candidate.”
Reporter: And he said he doesn’t know either because he said other people were handling those things and we imagine that you, supporting him as you did, would have been one of those persons.
Anthony Mahler, Area Representative Pickstock: “I was one but again I am a part of this team and he led. I followed and I stood beside him on many a days but it was his show.”
The controversy has also renewed discussion about campaign financing and the need for greater transparency surrounding political spending. The National Trade Union Congress of Belize is currently demanding campaign-finance reform within ninety days, including limits on political contributions, public disclosure of donations and expenditures, and independent oversight and enforcement. When asked about the possibility of legislation regulating campaign financing, Mahler said his confidence in such a law is limited. He explained why he believes legislation alone may not effectively control political spending or guarantee transparency.
Anthony Mahler, Area Representative Pickstock: “Yes, to a certain extent. I don’t think any politician wakes up one morning for an Election Day and say I want to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars right ? I think there should but realistically speaking in the great United States they create campaign finance reform but what they do? How did president trump raise $1.2 billion dollars for an election.”
Reporter: Super PACs
Anthony Mahler, Area Representative Pickstock: “So you could come up and holler dark money and that’s an irresponsible statement again because dark money makes it sound like we’re dealing with drug dealers, no man. Explain yourself because the normal Belizean won’t understand what that means. And when intellectuals come out and say these things they really don’t understand the grind on the ground.”
Reporter: So they need to sit with you all as stakeholders.
Anthony Mahler, Area Representative Pickstock: “I’ve invited them and said come see my clinic, one of the clinics one of these days. Go and see Honorable Cordel Hyde’s clinics, go and see somebody else’s clinic in a rural community and see what we have to deal with on a daily basis. So if a businessman gives me money in terms of my campaign what is the reality ? That is the reality all across the world.”
Mahler maintained that the media has a responsibility to distinguish between verified expenditure and political speculation.
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