PUP party leader and Prime Minister Said Musa was politically hemorrhaging last week: with 5 of his Ministers including his Deputy declaring that the Prime Minister was on his own when he signed the Universal guarantee. And what made it worse for the PM is that while this public division was aired, the Prime Minister wasn't even here to defend his actions as he will be in Taiwan until May 6th.
But to his rescue have come what we'll call the "Saidistas": led principally by Party Chairman Francis Fonseca and National Campaign Manager Ralph Fonseca.
Over the weekend, they gathered support of a majority of Ministers, Representatives and executive members who agreed to a strategy to end the hemorrhaging by doing a few things: first quell the public dissent, second, neutralize the Prime Minister's opponents within the party, third, galvanize internal support for the Prime Minister, and fourth publicly declare it loud enough and long enough to drown out challenges being made by the UDP and the Association of Concerned Belizeans.
And so with that, a meeting of the party's parliamentary caucus was held today at 2:00 pm at the Independence Hall headquarters. The parliamentary caucus is made up of 40 members, including the national executive, members of the House who are not on the executive, and new standard bearers. Today between 2:00 and 2:30, they filtered into the meeting from all parts of the country.
7NEWS has confirmed that the meeting had the attendance of all members except for two: Mark Espat and Cordel Hyde. The last member entered at 2:30 and the meeting ended just before 4:30, after members declared universal support for a 5 point resolution. Secretary General Henry Charles Usher called a press briefing to detail those points.
Henry Charles Usher, PUP Secretary General
"The Leader of the Opposition calling on the Prime Minister to resign. We reject that completely. On this side you see that the resolution itself was passed unanimously by all those that were present.
The second of the resolutions is that the Prime Minister acted lawfully
at all times in settling this debt and in agreeing in Cabinet that the debt should be settled.
Point three, and the points are right there on the resolution to be read by all media houses like I said, point three is that at a meeting of the Public Finance Committee, a subcommittee was created by the Prime Minister to deal with this matter and that the Parliamentary Caucus supports a renegotiation of the Universal debt and the renegotiation for the entire process.
Point four is that we reject utterly the media's attempt to try to divide the party by singling out Ministers to make individual statements on this matter. We reject that, we are approaching it from a party position, a party statement, and this is the party statement.
The fifth point of the resolution is that we are in full support of the Prime Minister, full support of our Party Leader, the Rt. Hon. Said Musa, and we are calling for a national convention in June of this year. Those are the five points of the resolution."
Janelle Chanona, News 5
"Do you feel that you all were backed into a corner to give a position on this or was this in the making?"
Henry Charles Usher,
"This was in the making for a while. The meeting itself was to be called sometime in May, early May, actually it should be called in April."
Jules Vasquez,
Henry the Prime Minister has signed a pair of documents activating the guarantee for Universal, how will he now return to the Belize Bank and say, 'I signed in error and that we need to renegotiate.'?
Henry Charles Usher,
"What documents are you referring to?"
Jules Vasquez,
I am referring to a guarantee and a settlement deed.
Henry Charles Usher,
"The guarantee is there but there is no settlement deed, the matter is still in negotiations."
Jules Vasquez,
So the Prime Minister is prepared to return to the Belize Bank and tell them, 'I would like to renegotiate this and make it a limited guarantee instead of an unlimited.'?
Henry Charles Usher,
"The Prime Minister or his committee that he appointed is prepared to go back to Belize Bank to renegotiate this matter, yes."
Jules Vasquez,
Are you all prepared to take the matter to the National Assembly? The Association of Concerned Belizeans has indicated it will file a suit forcing the government...?
Henry Charles Usher,
"To take what matter?"
Jules Vasquez,
"The guarantee into the National Assembly where it can be voted upon by 29 members."
Henry Charles Usher,
"Again that will be a decision of the Prime Minister in consultation with the Cabinet. From a party perspective, I can't answer that question."
Jules Vasquez,
But if he is forced to as a matter of law and a vote is taken upon it, with 5 Ministers having stated that they would not support it had they known at the time.
Henry Charles Usher,
"I am certain that if the legal advice is that the Prime Minister must take it to the House of Representatives, he will take it to the House of Representatives. I have no doubt about that."
Jules Vasquez,
Are you convinced that at that time he would be able to get the support from the majority of the members of his side or the support of every member of his side?
Henry Charles Usher,
"Yes I am confident that he would be able to get a vast majority of his members to support it."
As we said, it is our understanding that every member including Deputy Party Leader and acting Prime Minister Briceno declared his support for the Prime Minister.
Now to deal with the resolution: first the biggest news has to be that there will be a national convention in June. We take that declaration as a show of the Prime Minister's strength in the party and also as an open challenge to all who would choose to question his leadership in whatever form.
The second biggest piece of news is that in point number two the resolution also says that the Cabinet fully supported the process of settling the Universal debt. We stress "the process," because the clever wording takes the issue away from the date of purported signing of the guarantee on December 9th, 2004 and says that Cabinet supported "the process" - which is not tied to any specific date. It must be worded in that way, because 5 Ministers have told 7NEWS that they did not know in 2004 and had they known, they wouldn't have supported it.
And that brings us to the other point where resolution four seeks to criticize the media for what PUP Ministers said. The resolution refers to this as an orchestrated attempt by the media to spread dissension. Of course, we don't know who was leading the orchestra when the acting Prime Minister John Briceno criticized the guarantee on his own television station in Orange Walk last week Thursday.
But while the resolution is a glowing demonstration of how to close the ranks relatively bloodlessly, really that's an optical effect, because the bottom line political crisis remains unresolved, and that is this: the ACB will ask the courts to force the Prime Minister to take the guarantee to the House for approval, and if it succeeds, as Senator Godwin Hulse has pointed out, it would be hard for any member to say he or she supports paying a $33 million private loan with public funds. Of course, it would be doubly hard for the 5 members who have gone on record with 7NEWS to do so.
But, if the Prime Minister's team is able to successfully negotiate with the Belize Bank and somehow get the bank to write off the interest, which makes up 55% of the $33 million, then perhaps that could be a way out.
The ACB is expected to make its filing in the Supreme Court on Wednesday, claiming that the Prime Minister violated section 44 of the Constitution which requires any policy decision to be made by Cabinet. Senator Godwin Hulse has been joined in that action, and the Medical and Dental Union and the Chamber of Commerce may also join.
And while this hangs unresolved, the battle that hasn't been fought yet is over the significant write-down of Universal's debt to the DFC. The Prime Minister has confirmed that the debt of $12 million has been written down to $4 million. The interest write off was another $8 million.
