The recent role of the Leader Emeritus, Right Hon. George Price, is an interesting one. Replaced as Leader of the PUP in 1996 after forty years at the helm, Mr. Price has since supported the new leadership, in the person of the Hon. Said Musa, in an unconditional manner. Mr. Price has not criticized anything with Mr. Musa?s leadership in the last two years. He has not criticized publicly, and he has not, to the best of our knowledge, criticized privately.
Whether he accepts the responsibility or not, Mr. Price is, for many reasons, the undisputed keeper of the PUP flame. If he were to speak, the PUP masses, from the Rio Hondo to the Sarstoon, would surely listen. In fact, what the Musa leadership has been doing, ever since financial controversy began to surround this PUP administration a little less than two years ago, is to trot out Mr. Price at various events and photo opportunities all over the country, the message being that whatever the Musa leadership does, is in the name and service of the Leader Emeritus.
Between 1994 and 2004, Kremandala was in a functional alliance with the PUP. In the very beginning, that alliance became unstable because of a dissident movement inside the PUP, which began on May 15, 1994, following a landslide PUP defeat in the March 2004 Town Boards. The PUP at the time of May 15 movement was in Opposition, having lost power to the UDP on June 30, 1993, in a surprise result.
May 15?s main issue had to do with what its members felt was the exaggerated power of the Hon. Ralph Fonseca inside the PUP. The leadership of May 15 appeared to believe that Mr. Fonseca was largely to blame for the 1993 general elections defeat. Mr. Price, who was still PUP Leader at the time, maintained loyalty to Mr. Fonseca, as did Said Musa, Glenn Godfrey, Maxwell Samuels and the Courtenay family.
May 15?s highest ranking leader was Hon. Florencio Marin of Corozal Southeast, who had been PUP Deputy Leader for a long time before he resigned at the time of May 15. Other May 15 powerhouses included Johnny Brice?o, (Orange Walk), Jose Coye, Bill Lindo, Michael Espat (Toledo), Dan Silva (Cayo), Ted Aranda (Dangriga), and Dolores Balderamos Garcia. Cordel Hyde, who was a new member of the PUP and would go on to defeat Carlos Diaz in September 1994 in an Independence Hall convention for chairmanship of the Lake Independence constituency, was a member of the May 15 alliance, albeit inexperienced.
By the time of the PUP?s national convention at Bakers Ranch in late 1994, the uproar within the party had been settled. Johnny Brice?o became a PUP Deputy Leader, along with Max Samuels. Jose Coye, Bill Lindo and Cordel Hyde joined the PUP executive. The question of the larger than life Mr. Fonseca was not answered. In retrospect, the question of Ralph Fonseca was swept under the PUP rug.
Alliances are fluid in politics, so that when the G-7 group of Cabinet ministers challenged the said Mr. Fonseca?s power in the PUP Cabinet in August of 2004, Mr. Fonseca?s most vocal supporters were the aforementioned Florencio Marin and the aforementioned Michael Espat, both of whom had opposed Ralph in May 15. Johnny Brice?o, who had benefited the most from May 15 and who was the highest ranking leader (Deputy Prime Minister) in G-7, found himself in August 2004 in a battle with the former May 15 leader, Florencio Marin, who proceeded to engineer Brice?o?s removal as leader of the Northern Caucus, the most powerful sub-grouping inside of the PUP.
The conventional wisdom within the PUP is that Mr. Price is a relic and has no day-to-day role in the party. We don?t agree. Mr. Price is what is known as a ?living legend.? The power of living legends is awesome. All they have to do is nod their heads, or shake their heads, and people jump.
At this point, it appears that the PUP is still in shock over March 1. Shock is mixed with denial. The PUP, in other words, is in bad shape. If our thesis is correct that the living legend will have a major say, then nothing much will change in the PUP. The only old man we know of who ever continued to make revolution was Chairman Mao. After the fall, then, to repeat, the PUP is in bad shape. The party has become a caricature of itself. To put it another way, this is a party which had begun to worship itself. And politics ain?t religion, Jack.
Power to the people.