Yesterday at the House of Representatives, backbenchers Mark Espat and Cordel Hyde voted in favor of two motions approving $215 million in new debt for the government. They declared their votes when Opposition Leader Dean Barrow asked for a division which forces each member to individually announce his or her vote.
On January 14th, when the budget was being passed, both representatives made history when they voted against their own government's budget. After that they held a press conference boldly indicting the Musa administration for producing what they described as an uncaring and factually distorted budget. Then, the two came out last week to criticize the Party's National Convention process as un-democratic, and on Sunday, they were the only two PUP representatives who did not attend the national convention in San Ignacio.
So then, why did they vote in favor of the new debt yesterday? Well, according to interviews in today's Amandala, both representatives said they felt they had to because the country's fiscal situation is so bad that without the new money, the country would lapse into a sovereign default on its debt. Lake I's Cordel Hyde is quoted as saying, "we are borrowing huge sums of money to pay loans....and the process that got us to this place is fraught with indiscretions and mistakes." That's one more stiff indictment of government's much questioned money management, and, again, it seems to us like the rebel representatives are on the road to an expulsion from Belize's grand old party.
But applying what may be the counterintuitive logic of a jilted lover, it seems that the harder Espat and Hyde "play-gens" with the PUP, the more the PUP wants them back. On Sunday, Deputy Party Leader and Deputy Prime Minister John Briceno told us that the PUP need Cordel Hyde and Mark Espat because his party has kept the south side on the outside for too long.
John Briceno, PUP Deputy Leader
"Mark Espat and Cordel Hyde represent the future of this party. We cannot afford to lose two talented individuals like that. We need to make sure to bring them back, bring them back into this family. They are a member of our family. They were yesterday in full support of the national party council meeting yesterday, they were there with their delegates and they participated. They had certain concerns and we need to address it and we need to understand that. These past few weeks that I have been campaigning, I went into the south side, I met the different delegates in each constituency, and I could see why they have this concern. I could see the anger in a lot of the young people on the south side and if we continue to keep quiet, if we continue to keep a blind eye to all of these young people, we are going to have even more problems. Both Mark Espat and Cordel Hyde, as leaders of the south side, I think they feel it more incumbent on them, I think they feel the pressures more than us, to make sure that they can continue to cry out for help for their people. Cordel Hyde and Mark Espat should not and will not be expelled from this party. We want to continue working with them, that is the only way we can continue moving forward and to bring development for everybody."
In his address to the convention, Briceno said that he hopes to directly reach into the southside. A noble gesture, no doubt, but one that we'll wait and see stance on. After all, does anyone still remember 1998's now rather dusty south side manifesto?
