And, going back now to the wider view of Cabinet - they must now all labour under the narrative offered by Prime Minister John Briceno: that Jose Mai left Cabinet because of a bad back.
It's made the Cabinet a national laughing stock and to Jules Vasquez, the burden of that fiction alone seems like enough to give anyone a bad back! Here's his analysis of the changing relationship between Jose Mai and John Briceno:
Jose Mai has always been by John Briceno's side - from way before that day back in September 2017 when those two alone started a shutdown of the Tower Hill Bridge, and stood shoulder to shoulder, actually wrapped arm in arm to battle the police and tear gas,
To March of 2020, when Mai stood directly behind then leader of the opposition. Briceno when they walked out on the budget presentation - the Deputy Leader for the north - always had Briceno's back.
And in February of this year, when Briceno called the election - there he was, looking slightly more spiffy and svelte but - but always right behind Briceno.
Except on Tuesday of this week - when Briceno didn't have his favourite wingman - Mai was missing as he was out of cabinet and out of commission, supposedly, with a bad back:
John Briceno, Prime Minister
"Minister Mai has a farm and one time he came to cabinet saying that he was riding his horse and he fell off. This was over a year ago. Many of us bantering him, teasing him not realizing that he was seriously hurt, both his lower back and his shoulder and now he is telling us that he will have to be having surgery, probably going to Guatemala for surgery. So he felt it's best to take a leave of absense once he takes that opereration and go through the recovery process."
It's the mistruth that spawned a thousand memes, the Prime Minister widely mocked for mouthing such an obvious and transparent falsehood.
But how to describe the faces of those ministers behind him when the PM mouthed the big fib? Part grimace, part grin, forced smiles stretched thin by the burden of knowing they'll have to carry that falsehood into the public sphere.
Alas, maybe too much a burden. Yesterday, both Kareem Musa and Oscar Mira would not repeat the Prime Minister's bold and bald mistruth:
Kareem Musa, Minister of Immigration, Labor, & Governance
"I wouldn't be able to comment on that."
Reporter:
"You're a member of cabinet."
Kareem Musa, Minister of Immigration, Labor, & Governance
"And I have personally tried to reach out to Minister Mai, but I haven't gotten a response as yet from him."
Reporter:
"Do you believe that, in fact, Minister Mai has a bad back and that that is the reason why he is moving away from his duties at the Ministry of Agriculture? you're a cabinet member, sir. You would have been in Cabinet with him."
Oscar Mira, Minister of Home Affairs & Enterprise
"I am in Cabinet. He is a friend of mine. Yes, he had an accident, but I leave it as that, you know, all of us, all of us decide and Know how we feel, you know, because sometimes We need to take a break. I can't speak for him. He needs to speak for himself."
Indeed a far ways off from the defiance of 2020, no more supportive nods, no firm brow of collected conviction - in 2025, we see tepid smiles and the knowing, tight-lipped looks of those who sense it only goes downhill from here.
And while some may be stressed about carrying that story, the PM surely doesn't seem to be. He left the country today on personal leave until next Wednesday.
