Okay. Some of this article is about the PUP. I am not a member of any political party, and my only stake in party politics is what will happen to Belize, the place of my father’s birth, my wife’s birth, the birth of our three children and two of our grandchildren. The news reports as regards the result of the February 7 elections are beginning to assume a surreal character; like am I really hearing what I’m hearing? It appears that there is a brewing battle within that party as to who will inherit the leadership; the Mark Espat- Cordel Hyde alliance, the northern faction spearheaded by Johnny Briceño, or the budding alliance of Francis Fonseca and Godfrey Smith.
Forgive me if I’m a bit confused, but Mark Espat won 64% of the vote in the Albert constituency, by far and away the best results for a PUP candidate in a red tide that swamped the blue, winning 25 seats out of the available 31 seats. What was a foregone conclusion is the “official” resignation of both the former Prime Minister Said Musa and of Ralph Fonseca, the former PUP campaign manager, although they are obviously trying to hold on to a modicum of control from behind the scenes. What I find amusing is how PUP candidates who were the recipients of serious ass-whippings still seem to think that they should play a leading role in determining the PUP’s future, whatever that is.
Godfrey Smith took a major league whopping from the UDP’s Sedi Elrington in the Pickstock constituency. Freetown’s Francis Fonseca pulled a “scrape dog,” defeating the UDP’s Michael Peyrefitte by just 16 votes, a victory that was only made possible because of Mr. Peyrefitte’s apparent inability to know when he should keep his big mouth shut! If several very injudicious and very public statements hadn’t hit the airwaves and the newspapers, there is every reason to believe that Mr. Fonseca would have gone down with the rest of the PUP ship.
Given all of this, how in the world can the PUP losers presume to dictate to those few winners who should lead the PUP back from this kind of a debacle? Mark Espat, along with Cordel Hyde and Johnny Briceño, should get those positions by virtue of what they accomplished, while the rest of the PUP candidates ate a big slice of humble pie, yet the word on the news is that the Francis Fonseca-Godfrey Smith faction has more support within the PUP than Mark Espat, Cordel Hyde and Johnny Briceño!
The “PUP Convention” is scheduled for March 30. I put “PUP Convention” in quotes because that party is well known for having a small number of party insiders make decisions and then simply presenting those decisions as a fait accompli to a convention of the party faithful. Let me be straight up. As I have said multiple times, I belong to no political party. Maybe, as a matter of fact certainly, the PUP brain trust will probably remind me publicly that I have no business writing about their internal affairs, but if the convention elects a “leadership” that just got smoked the way it did, goodbye PUP, maybe for a long time, maybe forever.
If these guys choose to be represented by those who were roundly rejected by the Belizean people, well, the PUP will commit ritual suicide. I don’t believe that even with the passage of time the damage done by ten years of the Said Musa-Ralph Fonseca axis of evil will easily be forgotten or forgiven, particularly if the face of the party will be represented by some of the major players in that disaster! If the PUP goes that route, well that may very well be the last gasp of a dying party. So what? Many political parties in many countries are no more, fodder for historians only. If that’s the way it plays out, well who cares? I don’t. If you’re way behind, you’re way behind. Second place is for the first loser!
That’s part of the problem. The PUP “leadership” seems incapable of taking even a semblance of advice from outside the so-called “inner circle” of party insiders. The party appointments to the Senate are a textbook illustration of myopia! It seems as though today’s incarnation of a once vibrant and proud political organization has become so insular that the realities of the modern political landscape escape them. That’s what got them into this dilemma in the first place. Since the cats got out of the bag in late 2004 and early 2005 (my apologies to my numerous cats for using that metaphor – cats are noble animals, unlike almost all politicians) the PUP “leadership” has steadfastly denied that any of those cats were on the loose!
Let’s look at the numbers. Godfrey Smith is the former PUP area representative from Pickstock, a division that has been historically a PUP stronghold. He lost by 332 votes to Sedi Elrington. He was rewarded with an appointment to the Senate and what appears to be no loss of clout within the PUP! Nice going, Godfrey! You turned a loss into a personal win! What a demonstration of the skills needed to get ahead in this world; it’s not what you know, but who is on whose hook.
Joe Coye. He lost to the UDP’s Carlos Perdomo in Caribbean Shores by 1,061 votes. This apparently hasn’t affected his status within the PUP in terms of his voice in picking the “new” PUP “leadership.”
Christmas came early for Freetown’s Francis Fonseca. Please tell me; how does a 16-vote victory over a candidate who blew what should have been an easy opportunity for him with a spectacular series of public f—k ups qualify the man as the “new” party leader?
The PUP’s Anthony Sylvestre got creamed by 1,443 votes in his Queen’s Square loss to UDP Party Leader and new Prime Minister, Hon. Dean Barrow. Boy, Mr. Sylvestre has certainly demonstrated his qualifications to help decide the future winning strategy for his party!
We could go on and on. Why bother? The only PUP candidates who were winners in this election were Mark Espat; Cordel Hyde; Johnny Briceño; Florencio Marin, Jr. (also by those ubiquitous 16 votes); Francis Fonseca and Said Musa. All the rest of them lost; some by large margins! Now ask yourself. Would you want losers to be charged with the responsibility for charting your new direction?
Maybe all of this has nothing to do with anything more than the insatiable greed that brought the PUP to this juncture. The PUP still has access to money. Oh, it won’t continue to come from the Consolidated Revenue Fund – read yours and my tax dollars – but they took so much when they had the opportunity that there are likely nice bundles stashed away in various places.
The legendary P.T. Barnum made a quintessential statement when he said, “There’s a sucker born every minute.” No doubt there are still some diehards who will continue to toss their money down a rat hole, with a little bit of encouraging “con talk,” you know, invoking the spirit of “the founder of the nation,” George Cadle Price. That’s probably what it’s all about. Control the party machinery and you get access to whatever money is still around, and whatever money you can still hustle.
That’s why in 2005 when Mark, Cordel and to some extent Johnny, said, “Hold the phone, you guys out of your freakin’ minds with this rass you are trying to sell?” there was no serious attempt by the party “leadership” to change course. Belizean PUP supporters, please understand, TO THESE GUYS, THE PUP IS NOTHING MORE THAN A MEANS TO AN END!
And what is that end? Take as much as you can so that you and your family can be set for life. F—k the legacy, f—k history and who gives a damn that the PUP began life as the party that was supposedly created to nurture the hopes and the dreams of the working people of British Honduras to control their own destiny.
Sorry to say, my fellow Belizeans, but some of us never seem to learn. Y’all have been played big time, most likely from day one. If you want to believe all that claptrap about “the father of our nation,” go right ahead, don’t let me stop you! The reason why the losers are fighting so hard to keep control of the PUP machinery is because they want to milk every drop of whatever cash they can suck until there ain’t no more left! Want to take a family vacation? Write it off as a trip for “party business.” A bit short on cash? The party treasury will help out nicely.
Now, what about the victors, the UDP? I guess I’m not yet so cynical that I have already passed judgment that nothing will change. As I write these words, the UDP government has only been in office for one solitary week. That’s not enough time to sense a trend. Looking at some of the appointments that have already been made, the jury is still out.
Today, Friday, February 15, I literally bumped into a friend who also happens to be an attorney. Let me clue you in, dear readers. Last week I already pointed out that the Police Department will have no credibility with the citizenry until Government either retires or finds some way to deal with its present high command! Guess what? I found out today that there are many Belizean lawyers who are saying the exact same thing! The high ranking officers who are dubbed “police problems,” are no secret to lawyers or to citizens who know what’s up!
The command structure of the Police Department isn’t the only concern when it comes to the administration of justice in Belize. The office of the Director of Public Prosecutions is also a major topic of conversation! If the new government either ignores or tries to circumvent these issues, well, it will be “business as usual,” again!
The problem with “business as usual” again is that we are running out of time! When conditions on the street have escalated to the point where shooters have no compunction about opening fire with semi-automatic weapons on a crowded nightclub dance floor or on an unsuspecting group of people returning home after a night out, well game, set and match! It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to predict what will happen next. Good new investments will be harder to find than a “religious leader” who actually tries to practice what he preaches, and anyone who can get out of here will do so post haste! Those who are left will fit one of the following two profiles…those who don’t have the wherewithal to split, and those who probably have more balls than they have common sense! I rest my case!