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#402050 03/09/11 10:19 AM
Joined: Oct 1999
Posts: 84,397
Marty Offline OP
OP Offline
John Briceno

Godfrey Smith
Belize’s two major political parties are in convention mode, selecting their candidates for the next General Elections. But these constituency conventions have created all kinds of intrigues inside and outside the Opposition People’s United Party executive. The PUP, it appears, are in sour grapes season.

Supporters of Toledo East aspirant Leonard Chavarria came to Belize City on Monday, February 21, to protest the Party’s decision not to allow him to participate in a convention which will endorse PUP Deputy Leader Mike Espat as standard bearer for Toledo East on Sunday, March 6.

Chavarria and his supporters got the media’s attention, as they inended, and were unsparing in their criticism of Party Leader, John Briceño.

On national television, Chavarria declared he will not support Espat and he is withdrawing his support from the PUP until Briceño is no longer Party Leader.

By Friday, Briceño came under a different kind of attack.  

Internet blogger, Godfrey Smith, himself a former Deputy Leader and a former Minister of government who had initially opposed Briceño’s candidacy for the party leadership, lashed out at Briceño in a brutally savage attack, asking him to “Please go, Mr. Briceño. Please go!”

In Smith’s opinion, the PUP is in a leadership crisis with two more years to go before General Elections.

Chavarria has told The Reporter that as far as he is aware, his challenge of Mike Espat had the support of the Party’s Order of Distinguished Service .

By Monday, February 28, an outstanding member of the ODS, Hector Silva Sr. sent Briceño a letter, resigning from the ODS.

Silva’s letter summed up his view of the PUP electoral fortunes, when it said: “I can assure you and the world that presently the PUP cannot win, not even a constituency.”

Silva told Briceño that when his replacing Silva as a Senator, because the party needed stronger voices, “was a monumental mistake.”

Silva told The Reporter that Briceño decided to exclude him from the Toledo East convention when he became aware that Chavarria had the ODS’ blessings.

Briceño told The Reporter the accusation is “an absolute lie”. Briceño said he had nothing to do with Chavarria’s candidacy  or its demise.

While Briceño admitted to knowing Chavarria, he denied having anything to do with his challenge against  Mike Espat.

But that is not how Godfrey Smith sees it in his Flashpoint blog.

Smith chastised Briceño for his lack of leadership and declared:

“The PUP has a leadership crisis right now and the only out for the PUP in the general elections is to get rid of John Briceño.”

Smith allowed that Briceño “has survived (the past three years of leadership) and will soon begin his fumbling, frustrating, fourth year as Leader of the Opposition. The Party should not allow him to complete it. Three years is enough time for any leader to get a handle on his party and start moving it forward.  

“The PUP is actually going backwards! Smith said.

But while Smith’s public flogging of Briceño  might sound like constructive criticism to political analysts, Briceño chose to downplay the whole thing.

“He is entitled to his opinion. I am in firm control of the Party and I have the support of the party. He (Smith) is irrelevant!”

At least one PUP executive member who preferred to remain anonymous, said Smith’s criticisms of the Leader are just sour grapes, pure and simple!

And at a PUP Central Council meeting on Saturday, February 26, none other than Godfrey Smith’s brother, Dr. Francis Smith, an aspiring for the standard bearer of the Pickstock Division (Godfrey’s old constituency), urged the PUP executive not to be distracted by his brother’s comments.

It should also be noted that three elected PUP parliamentarians were absent from Saturday’s PUP Council Meeting, which discussed, among other things, the upcoming municipal elections and the crisis situation into which the constituency conventions have plunged the Party.

The effect of all that is happening within and around the PUP executive may perhaps best be measured, when Prime Minister Hon. Dean Barrow announces his new budget next week.

The PUP have announced a protest in Belmopan to coincide with the budget reading.

The Reporter


Joined: Jan 2010
Posts: 610
M
Offline
M
Well I also am waiting for the budget but is it not premature to protest before the contents are known? What will they be protesting, anyone know?


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