Tomorrow at 2:00 in the afternoon, the PUP will hold a National Party C Council meeting at its Independence Hall headquarters in Belize City. The NPC meeting precedes Sunday's national convention and in the truest tradition of guided democracy, the idea is to settle all the executive postings before Sunday's convention. By doing that, everything will be set before Sunday, thus avoiding any nasty contention on the convention floor.
But, there are still some unsettled matters going into the meeting and that's causing some tension this evening. And much of that tension centers over whether John Briceno will be challenged as a deputy. According to our reports, Mike Espat was expected to step back from his challenge and withdraw his candidacy as a deputy.
As we understand it, as a reciprocal gesture, Eamon Courtenay would withdraw his candidacy for the post of treasurer. Courtenay would instead take up an amorphous new post as policy director for the party.
But it seems that if Espat doesn't step down, and indeed he might not, all bets are off. The concern for Briceno is that if Espat does challenge, even with the party leader's, declared support for him as a deputy, Briceno must also have the support of national campaign manager Ralph Fonseca if his bid to hold on as deputy is to be successful. And this evening, it seems no one is quite sure in which direction Fonseca is pulling.
But by tomorrow, it will all be settled, or as the case may be, unsettled. But whatever the case, we'll tell you what was the outcome of the National Party Council meeting.
