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Musa and Ralph step down – PUP D-day March 30!

GeneralMusa and Ralph step down - PUP D-day March 30!
Only six days after its worst defeat at the polls in its half-century history, the People’s United Party (PUP) machinery kicked into high gear to reorganize the leadership of the party. Two main leaders are relinquishing headship: former Prime Minister Said Musa and his close ally, former PUP campaign manager Ralph Fonseca, who primarily controlled public finances under the Musa administrations of 1998-2003 and 2003-2008.
 
At the ripe age of 63, PUP leader Said Wilbert Musa is clearly nearing the end of his onerous political career, and his party’s national executive met this afternoon at Independence Hall on Queen Street, Belize City, with all 31 candidates who contested the recent general elections—the winners and the losers—to decide the way forward.
 
On relinquishing the leadership, Musa told the press: “It feels like a weight coming off my back…”
 
The second leader of the People’s United Party after George Price, Said Musa announced on election day, February 7, 2008, on Channel 7 and Radio KREM, that this was his last run in electoral politics.
 
Musa told the press right after Wednesday’s meeting—less than a week after the elections—that he would be stepping down as party leader, and the purpose of the meeting, he said, was “to agree on the process.”
 
Musa was in his late 20’s when he entered politics. He lost his first general elections in 1974 by 46 votes when he went up against Dean Lindo in Fort George. He made a strong comeback the following general elections, in 1979, beating Lindo by 71 votes.
 
Musa lost to Lindo again in the next general elections (1984) by 57 votes, but in 1989, he improved his margin substantially, winning by 449 votes. Lindo left the scene and Musa has dominated Fort George ever since.
 
Even though Musa enjoyed very wide margins in the subsequent elections, he came close to defeat in last week’s elections, which followed a term rocked by continued outcry against secret deals he and former Attorney General Francis Fonseca (the current party chairman) had signed to commit millions in public funds without the knowledge of his own Cabinet. Interestingly enough, Francis is the establishment’s number one prospect for Musa’s replacement.
 
Reliable reports to our news desk indicate that there are three main candidates. They are Albert area representative – Mark Espat; Freetown area representative – Francis Fonseca; and Orange Walk Central area representative – Johnny Briceño. Of the six PUPs who were victorious in the general elections, Espat garnered the highest percentage of votes, while Fonseca garnered the least.
 
The process of picking a new PUP leader kicks off with nominations, which are due by Friday, February 22, and the special convention to replace Musa as party leader is slated for Sunday, March 30.
 
All indications are that the establishment inside the PUP is favoring Francis Fonseca as Musa’s replacement. Francis is the first cousin of Ralph Fonseca, the PUP’s former campaign manager, who also stepped down this week after his recent defeat at the polls. Musa announced Ralph’s resignation as campaign manager at today’s meeting.
 
We understand that defeated Pickstock standard-bearer for the PUP, Godfrey Smith, previously Minister of Tourism and National Emergency Management and former Attorney General, has been brought in to manage Francis Fonseca’s campaign for leadership.
 
As a matter of background, we recall that Smith was one of seven members of the G-7, a group of seven ministers who collectively resigned from Musa’s Cabinet in August, 2004, demanding that Ralph Fonseca be removed from Cabinet because of his controversial stewardship of public finances.
 
Musa never conceded to that request, and the end result of the G-7 challenge was that Smith realigned himself with the Fonseca-Musa camp, with only three of the men maintaining their stance. Those men were Briceño, Espat, and Espat’s brother-in-law, Lake I area representative Cordel Hyde, who later paid the price by being ousted from Cabinet over disagreement with the Musa administration over the Universal Health Services scandal.
 
Briceño lost his ministry and later declined to accept any Cabinet post. As a result, he was replaced as Deputy PM by former Corozal Bay rep, Vildo Marin. So ended the Cabinet showdown—three years after the G-7 resignations—in June, 2007.
 
Coming out of the subsequent PUP national convention in July ’07, Godfrey Smith, Johnny Briceño, Vildo Marin were re-elected as deputy leaders of the party.
 
The battle for PUP leadership is painted against this backdrop. The leadership of the PUP is decided by reps of each division, and under the PUP constitution, each division gets one rep for each 100 votes garnered in the elections. That would mean that Francis gets 13 reps, while his campaign manager, Smith, gets 10 reps from his division. Espat gets 17, and his brother-in-law, Cordel Hyde, would get 20 reps. Briceño gets 25 reps. How they come out in the final race depends on where the other 26 candidates and their reps place their votes.
 
Just as is the case with general elections, the prospective leaders and their backers will be rallying support from across divisional camps.
 
In light of this backdrop—and the high stakes at hand—the battle for leadership will be, euphemistically speaking, a fiery one, but Musa told the press today that he expects no fatalities.
 
“Inevitably, there will be some divisiveness. I don’t think it will be a bloodletting. What it will be is new blood coming forward to take over the party,” he remarked.
 
If the new leader were to be an elected member of the House—as would be the case with Francis Fonseca, Briceño and Espat—then that person would take Musa’s place as Leader of the Opposition. However, if the new leader does not have a seat in the House, Musa remains as Leader of the Opposition.
 
Musa emerged as national leader under the “Set Belize Free” PUP manifesto in 1998, which gained wide popularity in the face of a UDP administration that saw the retrenchment of hundreds of public officers.
 
UDP supporters on Thursday night remarked that the UDP has paid dearly for that mistake by being exiled to 10 years in the political wilderness, and that it was now their time to redeem themselves in the eyes of the nation.
 
Still, the PUP claim, after four years of internal and external political crises, that it will re-emerge with a renewed focus on its core principles and values of social justice.
In speaking with the press today, Musa restated his commitment to his party, and pledged that he would continue his involvement by working side-by-side with his successor.
 
“As far as my plans go, I made it very clear that I love this party – the People’s United Party – that I will continue to fight for what I believe in – the principles, policies and programs of the People’s United Party, especially the philosophy, the creed, and that therefore though I’m stepping down, I’m not stepping out,” Musa remarked in an interview with the press. “I’ll be here, very much involved, working side-by-side with whoever becomes the new party leader and indeed, the whole leadership of the party.”
 
Musa added that, “As the party leader, I would not be endorsing anyone…”
 
His resignation becomes effective as soon as the new leader is installed after the March 30 convention.
Musa told us that he was returning to private life at his law firm, Musa and Balderamos, on North Front Street.
 
Since he did win the Fort George seat in the general elections held on February 7, Musa will continue to represent his constituents in that division.
 
Said Musa became the PUP’s deputy leader at a 1994 convention. At the party’s convention in November, 1996, Musa ran against recently retired politician, Florencio Marin, Sr., for the leadership position that George Price was relinquishing after four decades.
 
Musa consequently became the PUP’s second leader, steering his party to the landslide victory of 1998, in which the PUP won 26 of 29 seats. He again led his party to victory in 2003, with another impressive win of 22-7.
 
His glory days in politics are over, however. In his 34th year of political life, Musa’s third run in the elections resulted in devastation at the polls, with his party garnering only 6 of 31 seats in the House.
 
Oddly, Musa announced at Wednesday’s meeting with party officials that he would be commissioning Dr. Joseph Iyo to compile a report on why the PUP lost the elections. Notably, Iyo, a professor at the University of Belize, and his colleague Dr. Marion Cayetano of Galen University, had done a poll just before the elections that wrongly predicted that the PUP would win in four of six districts.
 
We are also informed that the PUP has decided on the three persons who will represent them on the Senate. They are Godfrey Smith, Magali Marin, the daughter of Florencio Marin, Sr., and Dr. David Hoy, who replaced PUP Senator Anthony Chanona in late 2007. Hoy is related by marriage to Musa, as Hoy’s and Musa’s sons are married to two sisters.

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