Last week we showed you PUP Leader John Briceno and past leader Said Musa taking a tour of Musa’s Pink’s Alley stronghold in the Fort George Division. Though Briceno downplayed it as just one more stop on a national tour; it wasn’t; the move was hugely symbolic and staged for that effect. It showed the party’s old and new guards making public peace – coalescing into – what Chubby Renau might call – “one PUP.”
Whether that is a political fairytale or a politically expedient manoeuvre remains to be seen – but today there was one more sign that the old guard has a happy home in John Briceno’s PUP. 7News has confirmed from multiple sources that at a PUP National Executive meeting today, Briceno proposed two major appointments to the executive: first Francis Fonseca would be brought in as a fourth Deputy Leader – we guess three just wasn’t enough – and a post would be created on the executive for the Immediate Past Leader – in this case, Said Musa.
As we understand it, there was some dissent because – as we’ve reported – Briceno’s executive has divided loyalties with Mark Espat, Cordel Hyde and Bill Lindo veering to a far left position while Briceno occupies a centrist-right position. But after a few hours of back and forth on the issue, as we understand it - an accommodation was worked out in which Bill Lindo will get a promotion – albeit a dubious one - to the Policy and Planning Unit
of the executive and another Espat/Hyde ally will be brought in. Additionally, an additional Briceno proposal to introduce Said Musa’s son, Kareem was shelved for the time being.
A delicate power balance and one that is expected to be affirmed at a Party Council Meeting on Sunday which will see the old guard accommodated and restored to a position of respect within the executive.
And that seems to fit right in with Rt. Honourable Musa’s time-table for reputation restoration. On Tuesday – which is the PUP’s anniversary - the former Party Leader and Prime Minister will launch his memoirs. It’s called “With malice towards none – notes on a political life” and the cover that we see on the invitation shows Mr. Musa not in a reticent or elder statesman’s pose, it shows him in a triumphalist moment, arms outstretched and the masses before him.
We won’t call it a comeback – after all Mr. Musa told us only last week that he was retiring for sure but something’s surely seems to be afoot and his restoration to a position of influence on the national executive shows party leader Bricneo as either an unwitting accomplice or a knowing ally.
