Five years ago - on November 11, 2020, the PUP was at its peak - swept into office with a resounding and historic mandate. Five years later, the course of governance has not always run smoothly, and since being elected overwhelmingly to a second term in March, the party has found itself lurching from one crisis to another.
Which is why today - on the fifth anniversary of his administration taking office, the Prime Minister seemed to be sending a message when he announced his first major Cabinet shuffle. It would seem to suggest a kind of reset - and a signal to his Cabinet that he's not afraid to shake things up.
But did it successfully do that? Jules Vasquez will be in studio to analyze it with me - but first he has an overview of the winners and losers in this Cabinet shuffle:
Today's Cabinet shuffle had been rumored for weeks and when we asked the Prime Minister about it two weeks ago he clearly alluded to the possibility if not likelihood:
Jules Vasquez
"We keep hearing talk that there will be a shuffle, a cabinet shuffle that you're thinking of shuffling your cabinet as we draw to the end of the year."
John Briceno, Prime Minister
"You always contemplate that at all times. I mean, that's something that you think everything but but if you look at it, next month, November, it's going to be five years that we've been really in government, you know, I believe that, there's always room for improvement."
And now - on the 11th day of November - we know what the PM sees as improvement: there are two Ministers who got major downgrades and two who got major upgrades in this shuffle:
First, Kareem Musa gets a major downgrade. The Minister of Home Affairs since 2020 now loses that large, powerful and project heavy ministry and takes over a portfolio with two small Ministries - that's Immigration - which the Prime Minister surrendered - and the largely inconsequential Labour - and another, Governance that only exists notionally. He also loses New Growth Industries which goes over to Jose Mai - more on that later.
The humiliation of the downgrade is enhanced by the fact that his top tier portfolio is being handed to his younger brother, Henry Charles Usher - who gets a significant upgrade taking over a ministry critical to national life: Home Affairs.
To add to that he gets the Ministry of Enterprise - powerful in a different way - maybe you could say it has a kind of dark power because it's responsible for the free zones where Mexican cartels currently exercise a powerful and dangerous influence.
And that brings us to Jose Mai - who the Prime Minister likely believes had run things into the red at the Free Zone - evidenced by this attempted execution of a leading Free Zone operator last week.
To save face for losing that Free Zone, Mai takes over New Growth Industries - which again, is a minor addition to his Agriculture portfolio.
Second to Musa, the next biggest loser is Oscar Requena who loses the Ministry of Education which was just assigned to him 8 months ago - and has the biggest budget in all of government. He apparently performed so poorly that the PM took it back and had Requena revert to the Ministry he had before March, Rural Transformation, Local Government & Community Development, a demotion, a downgrade and a humiliation.
And one man's downfall is another's ascent: Francis Fonseca again emerges as a super minister; he takes back education which he happily surrendered 7 months ago and adds it to his existing and already loaded portfolio of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Trade, Education, Culture, Science & Technology.
Just In February of this year he had said the portfolio load was too great and an unwise pairing:
Jules Vasquez
"You are currently the MOFA/MOECST would you in another administration wish to retain, if things were remaining as they are - and that's completely not foreseeable - would you retain all those portfolios, that heavy load?"
Francis Fonseca, Minister MOFAFTECST
"No, I don't think so. I think those are very, very important ministries, very serious work. Dedicated attention. So I think, you know, that was a short term, I think, arrangement, given the circumstances. I don't see it at all happening in another term of government. You know, so, ideally you want a minister responsible for education and culture, and you want a minister dedicated to focusing on foreign affairs and foreign trade. So I don't see that happening in a next government."
Well, it has happened and that seems to speak volumes on the PM's lack of confidence in the depth of talent in his Cabinet.
Florencio Marin - who is like a cabinet journeyman - changes portfolios again for the second time in 8 months, taking over Public Service and Disaster Risk Management from Usher - which is more or less a literal move.
Importantly, those Cabinet changes take effect on November 17th.
