In terms of political decline for a mass party, one of the surest signs is always public infighting. Mind you, private infighting is a constant, but few lips slip between cabinet and caucus, so most battles are quelled, if not bloodlessly, at least noiselessly. This is especially true for the PUP where it's virtually a party mantra: to not go public. And while the young turks of the party's much bally-hooed reform wing may ignore this, it was remarkable yesterday, when the party's old guard did the same thing. You all saw Luke Espat and Winston Smiling, Price cultists and Musa loyalists, publicly lash out at Free Zone Minister Mark Espat. It was a skirmish about Winston Smiling's being deposed from his once untouchable Chairman's seat on the Free Zone's Board, but the battle was for who controls the past and the living present of the grand old party. A compelling political conundrum, and we looked deeper.
Winston Smiling,
"When the end result, I say listen, there was two thoughts: forget about it, okay; and the other three quarter of me said to fight this to the ground."
And to fight it to the ground, Smiling and his blue brothers in arms say he must challenge a minister who has embarrassed their party.
Luke Espat,
"His pattern of behavior over the past recent years has shown this kind of behavior. So it is no strange thing to me."
Winston Smiling,
"This particular Minister has embarrassed his government before and this is another avenue he is using to embarrass the government so I decided to take on this challenge."
And while ostensibly, it's a challenge over power and position in the free zone, if you listen to these guys you'll understand that it's no less than a battle for the soul of Belize's grand old party, the PUP.
Winston Smiling,
"Winston Smiling, and I would love to inject this piece, I come from the old PUP and I stand for principles. That man above us [pointing to picture of George Price] taught me to do the right thing and I will go down fighting doing the right thing, as simple as that."
And to now force Espat to do the right thing, Luke Espat and Smiling are looking to their old friend, the Prime minister himself.
Luke Espat,
"We take this government to challenge, not the Minister because the Minister is a functionary of the Cabinet, and we expect that the Prime Minister will deal with this matter."
And the truth is that the Prime Minister and Ralph Fonseca as former ministers of the Free Zone, outrightly protected or, if not, at least never challenged these pillars of the party.
Jules Vasquez,
The Free Zone was governed by two Ministers previously, the Prime Minister Said Musa for ten months and then Ralph Fonseca took over. Would this have happened under those two Ministers?
Winston Smiling,
"Not at all because I have contested two previous elections before this and proxies were allowed to be used. I even made that known to Minister Espat and he said that was then and this is now."
And in the now that is now, the question is, will the old guard of the PUP, which these fine gentlemen represent, be able to win out against the reform wing of the party.
Winston Smiling,
"It is the beginning of the war. It's not the end of it. He had his say Monday. There are days ahead of us. Let's see how the chips fall."
And it is a battle for chips and one political observers should take in with delight.
7NEWS produced for broadcast by News Director Jules Vasquez
Edited and Prepared for the internet by Keith Swift
