And while the Prime Minister mourns his mother's passing, there are pressing matters of state on his desk. Before the death on Saturday, it was widely rumored that the prime minister would shuffle his cabinet this week before the next Cabinet meeting on April 18th, which is right after the Easter holidays. But with the passing of his mother, that timeline has been thrown somewhat into doubt. Still, the current conventional wisdom suggests that- the decision was already finalized from late last week, and the Prime Minister will, and maybe must, make the announcement this week. So what will he announce, and when? Those are the burning questions, and 7NEWS has been gathering political intelligence to try and answer them.
- First the Prime Minister is expected to do something to make it clear, or make it seem that he is responding to the voter's strong anti-government sentiment of March first.
- Second, he is expected to do something with the petroleum industry, and third he is expected to make re-alignments that will tweak the party's power balance. To deal with the first issue, the Prime Minister entertained the idea of brining in new un-elected members to his Cabinet. It is believed however that plan was nixed after it met strong opposition from the backbench.
- And, as regards oil, it is believed that the prime minister will create a Ministry of Petroleum and take responsibility for it directly, leaving his Deputy Prime Minister John Briceno with a significantly trimmed-down Ministry of Natural Resources.
We are told that the Prime Minister may also make changes in finance, changes that do not include former Minister of Finance Ralph Fonseca. It's also a virtual certainty that Godfrey Smith will no longer hold the foreign affairs portfolio.
Currently, speculation is widespread about a host of other possible changes and configurations, but, as always, the Prime Minister alone holds those magic cards of chance and change and nothing will be certain until he announces. In this context it's worth noting that the last Cabinet shuffle was announced in the Belize Times which is released on Thursday. We'll keep you posted.
