And while we will seek an official response from government - Briceno is himself getting ready by going on a countrywide "listening tour" tomorrow. He plans to visit all 31 constituencies to hear what PUP supporters want their party's position on the ICJ to be.
This is after heavy blowback from the PUP southern caucus which has staked out and made its own position public 0 in advance of the party.
We asked Briceno if he's being forced into this national tour to protect his leadership from attack:...
Reporter
"How would you take to the interpretation that this entire listening tour is a concession to the fact that your leadership is to some extent under attack by those who seek to de-legitimize it, seek to weaken your leadership and that the listening tour - you are a leader, you are not a follower - yes consultation is necessary, but the thing is in April and you know that as a national leader, you have expressed before, your feeling is yes. So if that is your position, you should take it and lead, but because your leadership has these slings and arrows going at it, you have to compromise and try and come up with a consensus position. How do you respond to that interpretation?"
Hon. John Briceno, Leader of the Opposition
"Let me start off by telling you first of all, that I lead a political party. It's not my company. In my company I could decide whatever it it that we want to do and that's the end of it. But in a political party we are a group of tens of thousands of people with different ideas. And as in everything you try to build a consensus. Now I want to go and do my consultations for the entire 31 constituencies, executives and standard bearers and other leaders in those constituencies and I am hoping that by the time we finish, we I am hoping that we can come to a consensus as to whether the party should be saying yes to the ICJ or no to the ICJ. Whether we go to the ICJ or not is one of the most important decisions we are going to make since Independence and as a party we should not allow that to divide us and that is why it is important for us to try to come up with a consensus."
Reporter
"But isn't the fact that, for example, in the UDP one has the census from a couple of interviews. While the party leader has said that he will vote yes, he will be the minority it appears to me, but because your leadership to some extent fragile, you cannot hold a minority position."
Hon. John Briceno, Leader of the Opposition
"Where do you get that idea Mr. Vasquez? I challenge you to tell me where is it that my leadership is fragile. I have complete support in my party. Yes, there are people sometime they don't agree with what I say and that's fine. You find that in any organization. There is not a person in my party that have said I want to challenge the leader. Every one of them will tell you yes they support the leader. We had a convention. We had about 15,000 people here in February that came out to give me the support as the leader. The results in the municipal elections have been the best results that this party has had since 2003. The party is moving forward. The party is united and this party is going to form the nest government whenever they call the election."
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