Luke Espat
Businessman, Luke Espat, is no stranger to political or financial circles in Belize. He’s generally stayed in the background of politics in the People’s United Party even as he is front and center in finance and business, but usually where controversy is involved. Well, tonight Espat is making the news for an early announcement that he is running on the P.U.P. slate in Cayo Central, a division which the P.U.P. lost in the last general election to Minister of Works, Rene Montero, by a mere forty-four votes in a constituency of seven thousand one hundred and eighty registered voters. We got word via a post on Facebook which has gotten a lot of responses…none of them very good. Today, we asked P.U.P. Leader, Francis Fonseca, about this new entrant into politics and he was quick to point out that while Espat is free to announce his intentions just like anybody else, it is far from a done deal and in fact, Espat hasn’t been endorsed by anybody at the executive level.
Francis Fonseca, P.U.P. Leader
Francis Fonseca
“First of all let me make it absolutely clear that nobody has endorsed Mister Luke Espat or expressed—at the national executive level—nobody has expressed their support for Mister Espat’s candidacy. As you know, the national executive, at its last meeting, declared the season for conventions opened. So between August of this year and August of next year, we will be conducting conventions in all our constituencies to elect standard bearers including obviously Cayo Central. I know of at least five candidates who are interested in running in Cayo Central. So I don’t want people to get ahead of themselves. If in fact Mister Espat is interested in running in Cayo Central, there is a very rigorous process that has to be gone through. All the candidates have to go through that process; they have to be vetted, they have to be cleared by a committee within the party and the national executive of the party will have to review the recommendations of that committee and then will have to make a determination as to whether individual candidates will be allowed to participate in a convention.”
Espat told News Five that he will provide an interview on his candidacy on Tuesday because today he was busy meeting with constituents.
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