The Belize election next Wednesday looks like an easy third term for prime minister Dean Barrow. He gained two opposition seats in by-elections this year, and has been splashing Venezuelan PetroCaribe funds like there's no tomorrow.
Opposition leader Francis Fonseca meanwhile spends his time staving off leadership challenges. And he's pitifully short of cash–contrast his ten-page matte paper manifesto with Barrow's 40-page glossy.
Barrow's worries are elsewhere–a few miles west, in Guatemala, where professional comedian Jimmy Morales won last Sunday's presidential poll, and takes office in January.
When it comes to Belize, the comedian is un-funny. Right after his election, he said: "And with pain in my heart, Belize... We should not give up even a centimetre of our territory, a centimetre of our sea, a centimetre of what is joined to us by history."
"Absolutely unacceptable," retorted Barrow.
Guatemala launched a claim to the whole of what was then British Honduras in 1940, when Hitler looked poised to win WWII. They banged on with that demand until 1991. Even now, they claim more than half of Belizean territory–all the land south of the Sibun river.
Jimmy's party, the National Convergence Front, was formed in 2008 by former army officers–some of them veterans from a civil war which ended in 1996 and killed up to 200,000 civilians, many of them Maya Amerindians. A few thousand fled to Belize in fear for their lives. Jimmy is in denial about the Maya genocide. Many Amerindian areas voted against him last week.
Humour does not travel well. To English-speaking eyes and ears, Jimmy strikes a sour note. His TV show's 14-year run frequently caricatured a hapless blackface character with a big prosthetic backside.
Some of this material is still up there–just Google "jimmy morales YouTube pitaya," and click the one with the red jersey.
But his social policies would go down well in the Caribbean. He loathes abortion, gay marriage and drug decriminalisation, and he just loves the death penalty. He quotes the Bible non-stop. And he wants to tag teachers with GPS devices, to make sure they don't "break biche."
He wants to give every child a smartphone. That bit sounds like fun.
Just one problem: when Guatemala's Congress was elected in September, Jimmy's National Convergence Front took only 11 of the 158 seats. To pass legislation, he would need a string of allies.
To avoid backroom dealmaking, he wants a popular referendum next year to force new elections.
Continued politicking in Guatemala could spell trouble for Belize–if Morales wants to blackmail potential opponents, he may go for a high-octane row with the neighbours.
By chance, a British army team was back in Belize last month after a four-year break, for tropical training alongside the tiny Belize defence force. With them was Lt General James Rupert Everard, overall Commander of the British army's land forces; he spoke of a renewed permanent presence next year.
Belize might have done better with Morales' opponent, former first lady Sandra Torres. She was born of a Belizean mother in the border village of Melchor de Menchos, and went to school in Belize; her nephew is an opposition candidate in Wednesday's Belize election.
Torres took less than one-third of the vote in the presidential election; but her party holds 36 seats in Congress. She still counts.
Unfortunately, her sister and nieces have been charged with embezzlement and fraud; and there's unproven talk of drug links.
Jimmy Morales won because Guatemalans are sick of corruption. Congress in September unanimously stripped outgoing president Otto P�rez Molina of his criminal immunity; he was then arrested, charged, and put in prison. Until January, there's a caretaker in office.
Other countries have elected show-biz politicians when the stench got bad, often with disappointing results. Haiti's president, Michel Martelly, was a raunchy musician before his 2011 election triumph. In office, he was himself accused of corruption. He has ruled with no Parliament since January, but can't again stand for president. The first-round election for his successor was last Sunday; there are no results yet.
Any comedians here in T&T? We have Errol Fabien, less picturesque than Morales or Martelly, but talking more sense. And musicians? Yep, there's Gypsy.