Kremandala is not a political party, but the media complex has political experience, having grown out of a political party called UBAD (1970?1974), and having retained a small but consistent constituency which has voted the Kremandala way in 1979, 1984, 1998 and 2003.
To be fair, the PUP, albeit in a delayed manner, has made moves to implement a primary Kremandala concern – the teaching of African and Mayan history in the school system. So it may be argued that the PUP has made a greater attempt to respect its coalition partner, Kremandala, than the UDP did with theirs, NABR.
Before we proceed, we need to point out that the Leader Emeritus of the PUP, Hon. George C. Price, would never concede that the PUP was in any kind of coalition. Coalition is a state of affairs he considers sacrilegious, because it assumes that the government?s unity is not seamless. And Mr. Price, needless to say, is from the old school, which considers that the party unity should always be monolithic.
Whatever has been the case where the relationship between the PUP and Kremandala is concerned, it is for sure that there was a rupture in December of 2004, a rupture we now need to look at in detail, because of what happened on Sunday, August 14, 2005, in the Lake Independence constituency of Belize City.
Around April of 2004, the PUP member for the Albert division, Hon. Mark Espat, who had been a prot?g? of the Hon. Said Musa?s from Mr. Espat?s teenaged years in the 1980?s, contracted a marriage with the youngest daughter of the chairman of Kremandala, his wife being a sister of the said Kremandala chairman?s son, the member for the Lake Independence constituency ? Hon. Cordel Hyde.
The immediate majority opinion of observers was that the marriage was a political one, but it has continued to the present, and the couple now have a son. Lost in the excitement and speculation surrounding the sensational nature of the marriage, was the fact that it was at that precise time almost, that Mark Espat and his former patron, Prime Minister Said Musa, had begun to disagree seriously because of the Carnival contract, which Mr. Musa signed that same April of 2004 while Mr. Espat was on a honeymoon.
It was in that same April of 2004 that this newspaper, the leading newspaper in Belize for the last 24 years, first editorialized in an open and critical manner about the policies of the Hon. Ralph Fonseca with respect to Belize?s public finances.
Mark Espat and Cordel Hyde ended up in a public 7 Cabinet Minister (the so-called ?G-7?) challenge to Mr. Fonseca?s hegemony in Belize?s public finances, a challenge which took place on August 12, 2004. That matter was settled, temporarily, in a few days time, but a couple months later, Mark Espat and his former patron, the Hon. Prime Minister, clashed publicly over the aforementioned Carnival contract.
Mr. Musa decided on December 28, 2004, that he needed to discipline Mark Espat publicly, so he expelled him from Cabinet. All indications are that Mr. Musa did not expect Cordel Hyde to walk out of Cabinet in a gesture of G-7 solidarity with Mark Espat. Following Cordel Hyde?s walk, however, Mr. Musa had to expect that Kremandala would end the coalition conceived in late 1993.
How much all of this has to do with the Espat-Hyde marriage of April 2004, it is hard to say. What is for sure, though, is that Mark Espat and Cordel Hyde have lost a lot of money in the eight months they have been out of Cabinet. The salary of a Cabinet Minister is $90,000 a year: that of an area representative is half of that. Perhaps more important, hundreds of their Albert and Lake Independence people have had their jobs terminated since December 28, 2004.
The vast majority of the people of Belize are neither hard corps PUP or hard corps UDP. It is a sign of growing support for the UDP that larger and larger percentages of electoral constituencies have been turning out to vote in the UDP?s standard bearer conventions. There was one constituency which clearly went against that grain, and that was Lake Independence on Sunday, August 14, 2005. By withholding mass support for the UDP Lake I standard bearer convention, the people of Lake I gave a show of solidarity for the incumbent area representative, Cordel Hyde.
There are politicians in the ruling PUP who have come to believe that the voters of Belize City are for sale, because they are poor. We have never believed that at Kremandala, because our 36-year history is one of fighting against wealthy enemies with the help of poor people. When it has counted, the people have never let us down.
There is a burden of proof which now lies on the shoulders of Cordel Hyde. He is still a young man in years, but seven years in the House of Representatives is enough experience, we think. The people of Lake I on August 14 endorsed his stand of conscience eight months ago. When the people are with you, no one can be against you.
Power to the people.