Julius Espat and PM Briceño Clash Over Party Values

Prime Minister John Briceño is drawing a clear line after one of his own Cabinet ministers questioned the PUP’s commitment to social justice. Julius Espat recently suggested that only he and Deputy Prime Minister Cordel Hyde have carried forward the beliefs of party founder George Price. Briceño flatly rejected that claim during an interview on Love FM, arguing that social justice remains central to the wider party. He then delivered a pointed message to Espat: never make that kind of public statement again.

 

Prime Minister John Briceño

“There is one thing that I vehemently disagree with Julius when he said only him and another minister are for social justice. He needs to look at what his government is doing. We are for social justice. The PUP is based on social justice and the time we move from that, we cannot be the PUP. So I really want to publicly correct Julius Espat and I hope he never says that, only he and another minister. All of us, every Cabinet we have, one Cabinet minister will come and say, we have this problem. Look at Minister Chebat with the issue of electricity. It was not Julius Espat as the king of social media, it was not him that come to Cabinet, it was Micho who said PM we need to take off the GST, it will cost of several million dollars, but we need to do something. That is social justice. We live social justice every single day. I say this with great passion, because that is who we are. We are the party of social justice.”

 

Espat is steering clear of a public clash with the Prime Minister. He told us he would contact Briceño privately to settle the matter and clear the air.

 

Attention readers: This online newscast is a direct transcript of our evening television broadcast. When speakers use Kriol, we have carefully rendered their words using a standard spelling system.

 

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