The PUP’s Old Guard’s attempt to destabilize Johnny Briceno’s leadership failed miserably last week. Sensing one-upmanship on the part of the Old Guard to install Mark Espat as the new leader of the PUP, Briceno called a meeting in Patchakan village in Corozal on Tuesday of last week. In that meeting at least 22 chairpersons of the 31 constituencies gave Briceno their support. With that solidified position, he met with the other five elected PUP representatives and set down the rules. Despite a terse back and forth among all inside the ‘happy tails’ building, Briceno maintained his position and added that a convention was imminently in the making, as early as September. That gave little room for the five to maneuver and by Saturday it was set in stone when the PUP’s executive met. Briceno had won that little tiff, but the inner workings of how the PUP arrived at where they are now is quite a story.
Despite not trusting Mark Espat to be the leader of the PUP, the Old Guard decided to back him up since it is well known that Briceno has neither the intellectual capacity nor the political wear-it-all to win an election. Proof of this can be seen in the miserable display in the past Municipal Elections as well as the Village Council Elections. Because of the inability of Briceno to be a true leader, the Old Guard decided on backing Mark whom no one within the PUP trusts, but whom many believe would be ten times the leader that Johnny is.
The problem is that Mark, the eternal viper that he is, cannot be trusted and is considered a “handle with care package” for fear that he may strike the hand that carries him or even the hand that feeds him. Still he’d have been a better choice than Briceno a million times over and the Old Guard decided to go with a viper rather than a weakling. The only security that the Old Guard had, however, was that executive positions within the PUP would have been named by them and Espat would have been given no choice but to accept that, and he did. However, he did not want to throw in his name to run as leader and it was a crucial mistake that Briceno capitalized on. So effective was Briceno that he even managed to rein in Henry Charles, the Chairman of the Fort George constituency which is represented by the leader of the Old Guard himself, Said Musa. And Henry Charles was brought in with a grand promise of being the Party’s Chairman.
Oops! It ain’t gonna happen! At the executive meeting held on Saturday, Briceno announced that it would be a free-for-all! All the executive positions would be opened for contest on September 13 leaving Henry Charles with a bad taste in his mouth and now burned publicly as he went against Musa’s wishes to support Briceno instead of Espat.
Observers have no pity at the situations that have arisen within the People’s United Party since no one can easily forget where they placed this country with their deviant behavior. The saying goes, there is no honor among thieves, and based on what is taking place within the PUP, a more verifiable truism could not be found.
