S&P: PUP’s Supermajority Hasn’t Translated Into Fiscal Reform

S&P Global Ratings expects the People’s United Party to remain in power through the next general election in 2030, but says the party’s political dominance has not translated into the fiscal reforms needed to strengthen Belize’s finances long-term.

In its latest sovereign credit assessment, released Tuesday alongside an affirmation of Belize’s B-/B rating, S&P noted the PUP has governed since 2020 and retained its supermajority in the 2025 elections against a fractured opposition. Upcoming municipal elections in 2027 could further cement that political position, the agency said.

Despite that mandate, S&P was critical of the pace of reform under PUP leadership. The agency pointed specifically to the Pension Plan for Public Officials, a long-planned overhaul meant to ease pressure on the national budget, which it says has yet to significantly advance. Plans for a sinking fund to prepare for Blue Bond amortization payments, along with a fiscal responsibility law to anchor long-term fiscal management, also remain unrealized.

S&P said policy choices made under successive Belizean governments, not just the current one, continue to weigh on the country’s ability to sustainably service its debt. The agency pointed to Belize’s history of sovereign defaults, five over the past two decades, as a continuing constraint on the country’s access to external commercial financing.

The government has taken some steps to strengthen its fiscal position, according to the report, including efforts to improve tax collection through electronic invoicing and the planned establishment of a Semi-Autonomous Revenue Authority by 2027, a body first approved back in 2022.