The People’s United Party (PUP) was whipped to a pulp at the polls on February 7, and even though conventional wisdom would suggest that no one in his or her right mind would want to inherit a party in such shambles, the no-holds-barred fight for power inside the PUP supports the notion that there may be something of value yet to salvage.
While Ralph Fonseca and Said Musa have resigned their leadership positions in the PUP, the faction that has traditionally controlled the party (the Fonseca-Price-Musa-Usher clan) continues to be at odds with their internal adversaries who have been clamoring for wider people representation and change.
It is evident that Belize’s longest standing political party – the PUP – is in crisis, as fiercely opposing factions are at war even while the party goes into what may prove to be the most contentious, volatile and explosive leadership convention in the party’s half-century history, since Leader Emeritus George Price himself rose to headship in 1956.
Price himself is now in the middle of the controversy, after he began clamoring for the expulsion of the party’s most popular politician, Albert area representative Mark Espat, accusing him of trying to work with the new UDP administration to frame outgoing PUP leader, Said Musa, on the basis of “trumped up charges.”
With the withdrawal of Espat from the leadership race last week, everyone had thought that Freetown area representative and former party chairman, Francis Fonseca, would be going into a smooth endorsement convention, but not so. Former deputy party leader, Johnny Briceño, who was nominated but who had resigned his post as deputy leader and his leadership candidacy on March 13, four days before Espat withdrew from the leadership contest, has this week jumped back onto the campaign trail.
Simultaneously, the party’s Leader Emeritus, George Price, has come out of his closet with a full endorsement of Francis Fonseca as party leader, this a week after he started lobbying for Espat’s expulsion—a move that even some staunch party supporters say is contrary to what one would expect of a man wearing the titles of “National Hero” and “Father of Belize.”
Price went after Espat after Mark withdrew his candidacy for the leadership convention, while condemning that faction of the party that he alleged had been doing all in its power to “fix” the elections so as to install Fonseca as PUP leader.
On Wednesday, March 19, Price wrote PUP Secretary-General, Henry Charles Usher, citing two reasons for Espat’s expulsion: (1) that Espat has made repeated public attacks on the party and its members, including his statement of March 17, which he made when he stepped out of the leadership race, and (2) that Espat “has been conspiring with certain members of the UDP Cabinet” to have Musa and other PUP officials “arrested on trumped up charges as early as next week.”
On March 25, Espat’s attorney, Eamon Courtenay, son of Sir Harrison Courtenay, former PUP Speaker of the House, wrote Price demanding a retraction of the allegations of conspiratorial acts by Espat.
While Courtenay never received the written retraction he had demanded of Price, we are told that the lawsuit threat has been quashed because Price is no longer using the “scandalous allegation” against Espat.
Making the Price call for Mark’s expulsion even more intriguing is the fact that while Price signed the complaint letter as the chairman of the PUP’s Order of Distinguished Service, his authority to do so is being questioned by Belizario Carballo, Sr., JP, MBE, a member of the group, who wrote Price on March 25, noting that the group had never met to discuss the Espat issue, and that even as serious charges are being levied against Mark Espat, he has yet to see the evidence that would form the basis for those allegations.
That challenge to Price’s authority notwithstanding, a press release from the PUP Secretariat issued today calls Mark Espat to a hearing regarding Price’s expulsion request, with the party’s national executive on Friday, April 11, at 2:00 p.m. at Independence Hall, Belize City. While the release says that Espat “will have the opportunity to present and respond to the allegations,” sources close to Espat tell us that he most likely won’t be attending.
The PUP release says that, “After examining the letter of complaint along with an attached transcript of the televised statement made by Hon. Mark Espat on Monday, March 17, 2008, the national executive felt that the statement raises a question of party loyalty and discipline that ought to be investigated by the national executive.”
But Mark Espat loyalists have moved to defend him against George Price’s expulsion request. Some elders in Espat’s division wrote Price saying, “During the past several years, we have watched with dismay as our Party leaders in government have betrayed our people and philosophy by selling off our national assets, allowing the cost of living to skyrocket, giving tax breaks to those who need it least and using the people’s money to serve a select few. And throughout all these ‘mistakes’ we wondered where your voice of reason and conscience was?”
Since February 7, it’s been a sensational seven weeks of hellfire for the PUP. First, Ralph Fonseca and Said Musa resigned their respective positions as party leader and national campaign manager of the People’s United Party. Francis Fonseca, Johnny Briceño and Mark Espat then get nominated to replace Musa. Briceño and Espat call for reforms to make voting more democratic, to increase the voting list four-fold and to make the names public well in advance.
But the PUP executive reject the proposals out of hand. A day later, Johnny withdraws from the race. The following week, Mark withdraws as well. After the Easter break, Johnny returns to the PUP leadership race. Price threatens Espat with expulsion. Firing back, Espat, through his attorney Eamon Courtenay, threatens to sue Price for libel. A new chapter of this sensational saga will be written, for the PUP special leadership convention is set for 10:00 a.m. on Sunday, March 30, at the Belmopan Civic Center.
All told, the stunning blow that the people of Belize delivered to the People’s United Party at the polls on February 7 to punish the party for what they perceived to be widespread corruption and the pillaging of the public purse, is not the end of the party’s troubles, and even after the Sunday convention, the new PUP leader, as the Leader of the Opposition, will certainly have a lot to answer for, beginning with the $40 million in Government grants that was diverted to pay the Belize Bank for the debts of Universal Health Services—the very issue over which the public has been clamoring for the prosecution of members of the former PUP administration, including those now relinquishing their party posts.
And while developments are expected on the UHS issue next week, for now, the focus is on the PUP leadership convention, which, strangely, did not even make the pages of this week’s issue of the party’s mouthpiece – The Belize Times, except for two adverts.
Not only was the party convention not given any prominence, but an advert for Fonseca, the candidate that Price himself has publicly endorsed via a costly television ad, appears at the rear of the paper, while an advert for Briceño, the one whom the current party leadership is accused of working against, appears prominently towards the front of the paper.
But just in case you thought that the intra-party machinations have been quelled, we have received information indicating that 21 of the 48 delegates assigned by outgoing Party Leader, Musa, are immediate family members of the Musa-Fonseca-Price-Shoman clans. This amounts to 44% of the pie.
The way some people have been campaigning, taking no break over the Easter, you’d think that the campaign is national. While the campaigning has been focused on direct communications with delegates and prospective delegates, one man did an eccentric thing in Francis Fonseca’s division this morning. With an oversized general election Francis Fonseca poster in hand, he stood along the Northern Highway, decked with a PUP hat, campaigning to passersby in the rush-hour queue of vehicles headed into Belize City.
We understand that the full delegates list, promised by the PUP Secretariat two weeks ago, has still not been released, and a tally of the numbers indicate that 649 people are eligible to vote—the bulk of them from the Belize and Cayo districts, being the largest of the six districts from which voters are being drawn.
Party faithful say that Sunday’s convention presents a golden opportunity to start rebuilding after their overwhelming defeat, and they argue that the selection of a credible leader and the return to core social justice values are integral to the party’s ability to bounce back in the national political arena.
As the saying goes, every house built on a firm foundation shall stand firm, but that whose foundation is shoddy shall inevitably tumble into a heap of rubble.