And as we close tonight, we recap our headline story: Mark King, the minister of state in the Ministry of Human Development, Social Transformation, Poverty Alleviation and Peace in Progress is on three months suspension without pay form Cabinet. He is also facing two, possibly three criminal charges for a bizarre tantrum he threw at the Princess Casino at the Corozal border early this morning.
Indeed, King has been a loose cannon since he entered political life. In August of 2008, as an elected city councilor, he came out swinging against his mayor Zenaida Moya in a classic, unforgettable interview. For context to his actions early this morning, we air a portion of that:..
Mark King
"You should stick in news because politics is the business of politics. Maybe I am just Mark King, but I can tell you this that over thirteen residents came out to vote for Mark King in 2006 and if that is nobody to you then I applaud you my brother. What I give you here today has no bearing on what Mayor Moya thinks or feels or what I think or feel of her. this is professionally dealing with the tax payers money of the Belizean public that we were set there to do and we are guided by the City Council Act to do that and now we must go back to the Belizean public, but before the Belizean public go and put that ballot in that box, they would have had all this information."
"And no politician comes out and speaks the way I do because they know they are going to be chopped. I feel right now my head is on the chopping block, then again Jules you know my military background, so let it be because if one has to sacrifice for many to know, for the Belizean public to know where their tax dollars are going then I will tell them and I am willing to take that risk because politicians should be about democracy, about patriotism to this country, and about the people that voted for them. In 2006 thirteen thousand and odd people voted for Mark King and those nine councilors. We must give them something back and today I bring it raw and uncut to them."
"Today I might go down as a fallen soldier but I do it with joy, I do it with laughter. I do it for my country and I do it for my party any day, any time."
After that blow-up King was banned from contesting political elections for the UDP - which almost kept him out of the running for the Lake Independence race. Tomorrow we'll have more eon the latest developments in his case.
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