Despite threats of lawsuits from the outgoing Opposition People’s United Party (PUP) national executive last Thursday, the masses inside the party had their way at the People’s Stadium on Sunday, April 13, when they elected a new national executive to work alongside the new party leader, Hon. Johnny Briceño.
The convention proceeded as planned, notwithstanding a boycott from four City divisions – Freetown, Fort George, Pickstock and Belize Rural Central. They did not mobilize divisional representatives and supporters.
In fact, former national executive members were insisting that they are entitled to sit until June 30, 2009. They had threatened to sue to keep their seats, but at the time of this writing, they had not.
Coming out of Sunday’s special national convention, prominent members of the new executive are: three deputy party leaders: Dan Silva (former Cayo Central rep), Mark Espat (Albert area representative) and Cordel Hyde (Lake I area representative) take the seats formerly held by Briceño, Vildo Marin (who lost his Corozal Bay seat in the last elections) and Godfrey Smith, who ran on the PUP ticket for Pickstock on February 7 but also lost his seat.
The elected chairman is Carolyn Trench-Sandiford, who was PUP standard-bearer for Collet. Former PUP Senator and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Eamon Courtenay, replaces Ralph Fonseca as national campaign manager, while former SSB CEO, Mrs. Narda Garcia, wife of Gregorio Garcia (former PUP representative for Corozal Southwest), is the party’s new PR chief.
Even as the new executive celebrates, the battle over what had been deemed by many party members to be PUP assets remains unresolved. A resolution passed as Sunday’s convention calls upon the new executive to take back the media organs of the party: Positive Vibes radio and The Belize Times, as well as Independence Hall, the party’s headquarters.
A meeting scheduled last Thursday by the former executive is still on the agenda for Wednesday, April 16, at the disputed party headquarters.
And as to the hearing that was supposed to take place last Friday, April 11, to hear accusations made by Leader Emeritus George Price against Mark Espat, that hasn’t happened, and we are reliably informed that that became “a dead issue” after Briceño took over leadership of the party.
The PUP has six seats in the House of Representatives, and the events that have transpired in the weeks leading up to Sunday’s convention had fractured the Opposition House members right down the middle, with Briceño enjoying a visible alliance from only Hyde and Espat. Meanwhile, those of the Musa, Fonseca and Marin camp openly challenged his rise to leadership.
Still, Briceño and his supporters continue to call for party unity, which, they say, they need if they are to lift the party back to the political prominence it once enjoyed, and win the general elections that will occur in the next five years.