In our first segment you saw the Prime Minister defend his Cabinet moves and offer a counter narrative to Agriculture Minister's Jose Mai's departure from Cabinet.
Well, before he got that interview at 5:00 pm, Jules Vasquez put together his own analysis of the second shuffle in a week of a Cabinet that's surely showing stress fractures:
In 2016, reacting to a land compensation scandal involving Gaspar Vega, Prime Minister Dean Barrow bit the bullet and hosted a press conference to announce Vega's enforced resignation:
(October 17, 2016)
Rt. Hon. Dean Barrow - Prime Minister
"I accepted the resignation of the Hon. Gaspar Vega from the cabinet of Belize - his resignation as a minister of government."
Now, Minister Abelardo Jose Mai has been forced to resign under circumstances far more serious than allegations of local corruption. The US embassy - according to sources - has alleged and shown proof of suspect activities. So the Prime Minister was forced to make Mai resign - but don't expect a press conference. This press release was issued 96 hours after news of the changes leaked out.
http://www.7newsbelize.com/images/25/.jpg In an unprecedented move, the Minister designated to take over the hot potato Ministry of Home Affairs has publicly rejected it - Henry Charles Usher, the chairman of the party, turning down and showing up his leader, not behind closed doors, but publicly. Oscar Mira let the public know he is the actual Minister of Home Affairs and Enterprise in a Facebook post, there was no public announcement of this major portfolio juggling until today.
There was also no public announcement when Minister of State Chris Coye quietly left the government in September only 6 months after taking the oath of office as Minister of State. In March, the PM made him seem indispensable:
(March 26, 2025)
John Briceno, Prime Minister
"You have no idea how happy I was when he said, he'll work it out, he'll be a senator and help me with finance because it's impossible for me to do everything and as the prime minister the burden is tremendous."
A burden he is now increasingly isolated in carrying.
Coye was the third in a series of abrupt resignations by Ministerial appointees who'd just had enough.
The first to fall was Magali Marin in June of 2023, who resigned as Attorney General to return to private practice.
Then, in December of 2023, Eamon Courtenay - then the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade also resigned.
And while they all returned to their private practice, Jose Mai has also resigned and he has no private practice to return to. He remains an area rep for Orange Walk south, a seat his party leader will not concede - but the question for Briceno is how long can Mai remain politically viable?
The Prime Minister has now been forced to dig into the dregs of his Cabinet to promote Rodwell Ferguson to Minister of Agriculture - a minister who left a sticky trail of mismanagement in the Ministries of Sports, Transport, and Logistics.
And, Florencio Marin Junior who the Prime Minister effectively demoted after his tenure of the Ministry of Defence and Border Security left a lot to be desired in terms of public probity is now back at the helm of that same ministry - his second portfolio assignment in a week.
Today as the Prime Minister now has an additional police vehicle added to his escort entourage because of security concerns related to the Corozal Free Zone - he really has to question the state of rot in in his Cabinet - - Minister who had been set to one side for good and clear reasons are now promoted, and close allies are now under US scrutiny.
Again, when we prepared that story, the Prime Minister had not availed himself for any comment to the press; but, to his credit he did so for our newsroom at 5:00 pm.
