The PUP held its national convention on Sunday at the Corozal Civic Center. So did the big blue machine still have enough juice to pull a crowd, and enough muscle to do some public political flexing? Ravaged by scandal, beset by infighting, and pilloried in the polls, many thought not but they were wrong. The PUP pulled a crowd in Corozal on Sunday and 7NEWS was there.
Hon. Johnny Briceno, PUP Deputy Leader
"Welcome to the north. Welcome to PUP Country"
And even if the villages of the Corozal Southwest greeted the PUP party with a sour salutation, when he got to Corozal there was music and dancing in the street, and a sea of blue awaiting him in the Corozal Civic Center which was filled to capacity and then some. Past, present, and perhaps future leaders were on stage with the party cheerleader entertaining the crowd. And like a contending team in the playoffs of politics, the candidates were individually introduced to uproarious applause.
Hon. Godfrey Smith, PUP Deputy Leader
"The UDP want to know why we have come in such great numbers. The answer is simple: we have come to declare war on the United Democratic Party "
But two soldiers were missing: Lake I's Cordel Hyde and Albert's Mark Espat. As they did at the 2005 convention, both men were absent - though their delegates were there. Still, everyone pretended not to notice and the captain of the team soldiered on.
Announcer: 'From the Fort George Division, our Party Leader, Our Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. Said Musa.'
And from that uproarious welcome, Party Leader Musa said his party is battle tested.
Rt. Hon. Said Musa, PUP Party Leader
"We have also faced the storms right
at home. Storms of criticism, storms of attacks. Yes we have been through the baptism of fire but like good steel, the PUP has been through the furnace and we are stronger today than ever before. We are stronger because we have the iron will and the iron determination to continue to move forward for you, for the benefit of the vast majority of Belizean people. You the poor people who still need help, there is only one party that will provide that help - that's the PUP. We are fired up today, just feel the electricity in the air. We are fired up, the energy is flowing. Now we have to harness this energy into winning the next election."
And that really is the challenge for the PUP - to translate this massive crowd into the kind of sustained critical mass that would lead to a victory at the polls and it would have to be mass enough to absorb the bumps down the road between now and the election day.
So what were the numbers? Well to be fair, the crowd you saw in the very small Civic Center was just a fraction of the real crowd which was scattered across numerous tents that populated the field around the Civic Center. And because the crowd was never in any one place at any given time, it is difficult to estimate but based on what we say plus the bus count which is upwards of 100, we would put the crowd at between 4,000 and 5,000. The PUP claims double that figure.
