Darrel Bradley for UDP Leader…?

Could Darrel Bradley be preparing for a political comeback? The former United Democratic Party Belize City mayor has stayed off the ballot since narrowly losing Caribbean Shores to the People’s United Party’s Kareem Musa by just fifty-six votes in 2015.

Bradley says he still has leadership ambitions and could return to the political arena, but only if the United Democratic Party presents a clear and meaningful reform agenda for Belize. “I think that that would be something that would be not too long in the future. That’s something definitely that I would, it’s my desire to do that. And one of the things that I would say is, and it’s a responsibility that I take very seriously, is that the change we need in this country is not a change that we would labor on an individual.”

Bradley says any political comeback needs to be part of a broader movement, not a single person stepping back into the spotlight. “That’s a responsibility, of course, that I am prepared to take on, but that’s a significant responsibility. I think that the change has to come from a cadre of people who are really committed to high ideals of moving the country forward and principled leadership. I think that will include a Darrel Bradley, but that may and must include many other people who will be shoulder-to-shoulder in the building of this reformed Belize.”

He’s pushing for the party to move beyond demonstrations and public criticism toward a concrete policy platform. “We’ve talked about protests, and we’ve talked about a lot of issues, but we need to really double down on the idea of what are the set of concrete policies that we will promote as a political party, or as a grouping of social partners, to ensure that we have change in this country. And again, it’s not rocket science. Many countries struggle with these things.”

Bradley pointed to specific reforms he believes Belize already has the legal groundwork for, including campaign finance regulation and whistleblower protections, arguing the real gap is in enforcement. “There’s model legislation about campaign finance reform. There’s model whistleblower legislation. We have signed on to UNCAC. There’s a lot of things that are already there in our laws, but we just need to strengthen the enforcement arm of the legislation, and we need to hold our individual leaders and ourselves accountable.”