The Right Honorable Dr. Manuel Esquivel, former Prime Minister of Belize and currently a senior UDP Government advisor, is listed in stable condition at Belize Medical Associates following a traffic accident early this morning.
Amandala has confirmed that the retired politician, 68, will have to undergo reconstructive facial surgery after his vehicle overturned on the Western Highway between Mile 31 and Mile 32 around 8:40 this morning.
This section of the road had been made slippery due to overnight rains, we understand, and is one factor in why the Government-issued vehicle Esquivel and his driver, William Schnarr were traveling in, overturned.
According to a senior Government source, Schnarr and Esquivel were traveling to Belmopan in a green Nissan Pathfinder SUV when the vehicle skidded and then suddenly slid off to the right side of the road – “hydroplaned,” as our source put it – and ended up four wheels up on the right side of the road near the junction with Mahogany Heights. Local television reports say the Pathfinder flipped several times.
Both men were taken to the Western Regional Hospital for initial treatment; Esquivel was later transferred by air ambulance to Medical Associates and Schnarr to the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital for tests.
Initial reports this afternoon were that Esquivel’s prospects were “promising.” It was later confirmed that he had suffered no injuries to the head, chest or abdomen – the three areas focused on in the CAT scans and other tests performed by doctors – or internal injuries of any kind.
The former Prime Minister did sustain a broken left shoulder (the Press Office reports his “upper left arm”) in addition to having several bones in his face “crushed,” and our source tells us that as soon as his condition has further stabilized, Esquivel will be flown out of the country for surgery.
Schnarr sustained a large cut on the right side of his head and is being treated at the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital. He too sustained no internal injuries as a result of the accident.
Both men were said to have been wearing their seatbelts and the vehicle’s protective airbags deployed prior to the accident.
Witnesses to the incident have indicated (in other sections of the press) that Schnarr was not speeding at the time of the accident, and had emerged from the vehicle conscious. However, they said, Esquivel was not so lucky, appearing to be “in bad shape” with a “bloodied” face.
Dr. Fernando Cuellar of Belize Medical Associates told a reporter from LOVE FM this evening that he expects to hold Esquivel at the hospital over the next “24-48 hours” for observation before the facial reconstruction can take place.
Members of the former Prime Minister’s family – wife Kathy and daughters Laura and Ruth – were unavailable for comment all day.
Rt. Hon. Esquivel entered politics in the 1970’s as a leader of the Liberal Party, which merged with Philip Goldson’s National Independence Party and Dean Lindo’s People’s Development Movement to form the United Democratic Party (UDP) in September of 1973. The former physics teacher at St. John’s College (high school) served as a City Councilor from 1974 to 1980, and became the Leader of the UDP after defeating Goldson in intra-party elections in January of 1983.
Esquivel led the UDP to its first general election victory in 1984. After a narrow 15-13 loss in 1989 and a split in the party led by Goldson in 1991, the UDP narrowly returned to power in 1993 in coalition with Goldson’s NABR. However, after a humiliating 26-3 reverse in the general elections of 1998 to Said Musa’s PUP, during which he personally lost his seat in Caribbean Shores, Esquivel retired from electoral politics in favour of current UDP Leader and Prime Minister, Hon. Dean Barrow (who had served as his Deputy in the 1993-98 term).
Since then, Esquivel has served as a top advisor to the UDP’s upper echelon and, since the party’s return to power in the municipalities in 2006, as an advisor to Mayor Zenaida Moya’s Belize City Council (he endorsed her opponent, former Deputy Mayor Anthony Michael, during last October’s UDP municipal convention).
Following the UDP’s general elections victory last February, Esquivel was named Senior Financial Advisor to GOB with Ministerial rank. Esquivel, who held the portfolio for Finance during his two terms as Prime Minister, was widely expected to hold the post again during a Dean Barrow administration, but indicated that he was out of politics for good.
In what Channel 7 described this evening as an “eerie” coincidence, Mr. Esquivel crashed in this same area of the Western Highway “thirteen years and four days ago.” Prime Minister of Belize at the time, Mr. Esquivel escaped relatively unscathed, but his driver, Leslie Staine, was killed in that accident.