Nominations opened today, Monday, for hopefuls inside the Opposition People’s United Party (PUP) who want to challenge PUP leader Johnny Briceño for the leadership position.
But the story isn’t that clear-cut, as Briceño has already rallied up majority support to call an early election, and at least two deputies who had previously made moves to vie for the post, Freetown’s Francis Fonseca and Albert’s Mark Espat, are among a boycott group that we understand may challenge the upcoming special national convention.
At a meeting held on Saturday, August 28, 2010, the National Party Council of the People’s United Party met and decided to hold the convention on October 17, 2010, two weeks in advance of November, the usual date for the convention. Five divisions, four of them elected parliamentarians, shunned that meeting.
Amandala understands that reps for Freetown, Albert, Lake Independence and Corozal South East, all PUP seats in the National Assembly, along with Port Loyola reps, did not show up at the meeting, even though they knew about it.
The group, virtually all Belize City-based, with the exception of Corozal Southeast, also boycotted an executive meeting Monday, which was set to put in motion plans for the special convention. They are due to meet later this week.
Briceño is unfazed by the boycott, as he said 26 divisions of 31 were present at Saturday’s meeting. He told Amandala that he won’t know if it will be an endorsement convention until September 13, two weeks from now, when nominations are due.
There has been talk of a possible challenge by former party leader and ex-prime minister Said Musa, whose son, Henry Charles Usher, attended Saturday’s meeting, at which, Briceño said, the proposal for an early convention was unanimously supported.
One high-ranking party insider expressed the view to us that there is no reason why there should be a special convention, unless there are extenuating circumstances. Otherwise, the convention should be held November.
When we asked Briceño why the move to hold the convention and election two weeks early, he said that “…all over the country [party members] have been asking for this. Party members for some time, because of all the media frenzy, wanted to settle this. We want the party to unite.”
Briceño furthermore stated that most of the times, these conventions are not held in November.
“People have two weeks’ notice to decide if they will run, and they will have the voters’ list 31 days ahead of the convention. The constitution calls for 30 days,” said Briceño, insisting that he is not circumventing the party’s constitution, as some have alleged.
Briceño furthermore told us that nobody at the meeting said “no” to the early convention. Musa’s son, Usher, and his other Fort George delegates were in support, he added. For Briceño, this signals that at the end of the day, Musa’s constituency will support him.
Information in PUP circles is that this support may involve “old guard” members of the Musa camp getting key positions coming out of the convention.
At the executive meeting this morning, said Briceño, the results of the Saturday meeting were relayed, and the National Executive has been mandated to proceed with plans.
While nominations will close on September 13, the names of delegates are to be submitted by September 14, and the complete list of delegates is to be released by September 16, which gives a month for them to campaign.
Briceño explains that there is one delegate allowed per division at the convention, for every 25 votes netted by the PUP candidate in the last general elections. With the PUP garnering just under 50,000 votes last general election, there should be roughly 2,000 delegates participating.
Briceño also said that he would end up with the biggest delegation of 106 people at the special convention, having gotten 2,562 votes in the last general elections.
We note that the five constituencies that boycotted the recent meetings would collectively bring roughly 315 delegates and would need, from other constituencies, the support of 700 (or so) more delegates to topple Briceño’s leadership.