Briceño says the P.U.P. can and will come back
On last night’s newscast leader of the Opposition John Briceño offered his reaction to Prime Minister Dean Barrow’s first hundred days in office. Tonight the conversation turns to Briceño’s own performance after two months at the helm of his party.
John Briceño, Leader of the Opposition
“The new executive has been working very hard. We’ve been organising the different arms of the party. We are asking all the different constituencies to elect more executives. So we’re starting on this rebuilding process. I’m continuing to work with the Honourable Francis Fonseca, the Honourable Said Musa. We’re continuing to work. We built a parliamentary caucus. We take our positions to the House and we’re moving forward as a party.”
Stewart Krohn
“Belize Times, Positive Vibes, Independence Hall; where are we on these three vital assets for the party?”
John Briceño
“Well, the party assets we have, as you mentioned; Belize Times, the party headquarters, and Positive Vibes radio and television. Those are the party assets that we are in negotiations with the owners of these assets at this time. We’re very close to a conclusion. There will be a financial settlement of which we are working on. Once that is done—I’ve already indicated to the National Executive that there will be a financial settlement—we will be asking all the party faithful to help us in trying to raise the funds to try to meet our financial obligations.”
Stewart Krohn
“Secretary General; Henry Charles Usher is out. Who is coming in?”
John Briceño
“Well, we since last moth in April, the Secretary General and I met and we had a mutual agreement that he was going to leave because he has other plans in the political process but I’ll leave for him to announce that at the appropriate time. We just met this week and we finalised that he’s leaving at the end of the month. We are at this time looking at finding a new Secretary General. There has been, I know, a lot of speculation whether Miss Amalia Mai will be appointed the Secretary General but she is just of one of other candidates that we are looking at and interviewing before we decide who is going to be the next Secretary General of the Peoples’ United Party.”
Although he spent almost two full terms as Deputy Prime Minister, was Briceño ready for the transition to party leader?
John Briceño
“I think nobody can really prepare themselves to take on the task of leading a party especially after such a crushing defeat that we had on February seventh. But it also affords us a wonderful opportunity to rebuild the party, to be able to attract new people, to come up with new ideas and to create this excitement within the P.U.P. it is a difficult task and I’m not saying it’s not but its also so reassuring and it gives you a really good feeling when you start to see that there is so much good will left for the Peoples’ United Party. This party has a great tradition, it has a great history and whilst we’re going through a difficult period, I feel very confident that this party will rebound much quicker than people expect.”
It should be noted that in addition to its massive majority in the House of Representatives, the United Democratic Party controls all nine of the nation’s municipalities.
