Tomorrow Friday, April 28 at 5:00 pm is the deadline for PUP candidates to submit their names to the party secretariat to state that they will offer themselves for divisional conventions which must be held by June 30th. For weeks it's been heavily rumored, within the PUP, that National Campaign Manager and Minister of Home Affairs Ralph Fonseca will not contest the next election.
The thinking has been that Fonseca, who has enjoyed huge margins of victory in the custom-made Belize Rural Central Division, would, so to speak, take one for the team and remove himself from electoral politics. We say "take one for the team" because some on that team say the failure of his policies of former Finance Minister are the reason for the PUP's recent electoral blowout.
But, tonight, it seems that those in the PUP who would wish Fonseca out of politics are doing just that, wishing. Today Fonseca issued a statement to Channel 7, saying "not to worry, he will offer himself as a candidate for the convention." That resolutely puts to an end any speculation that Fonseca will recede into the shadows of the party and likely deepens the internal; rift between those pushing for reform and those preserving the status quo, a cleavage between positions that will bear watching as the PUP draws nearer to a national convention, slated for early in 2007.
