Hon. Tracy Panton
BELIZE CITY, Thurs. Feb. 20, 2025
During a ceremony at the Ramada Belize City Princess Hotel today, Albert standard bearer, Hon. Tracy Panton, who claims interim leadership of the United Democratic Party (UDP), officially launched her 2025 general election slate with 15 candidates. Betraying the fluid nature of the situation inside the UDP currently, their flyer presenting the slate excluded Hernan Riverol for Corozal Bay. However, he was very much present for roll call.
The other 13 candidates on Panton’s slate are: Patrick Faber for Collet, Cecil Jenkins for Lake Independence, Lee Mark Chang for Mesopotamia, Philip Willoughby for Port Loyola and Godwin Haylock for Queen’s Square, covering six seats in Belize City. For Belize Rural Central they have Beverly Williams, and for Belize Rural South there is Manuel Heredia, Jr. No TPUDP (Tracy Panton UDP) candidate has been named for Belize Rural North. For the Cayo District, Dr. June Young is being placed in Cayo South, and John Saldivar in Belmopan. For the four divisions in Toledo and Stann Creek, it has only presented Ivan Williams in Stann Creek West. In Orange Walk’s four divisions, Denny Grijalva is returning for Orange Walk Central, while Marlo Perera is running in Orange Walk East.
Tracy Panton Slate (not pictured is Hernan Riverol)
At the same time, Panton insists that there will be a full slate of 31 UDP candidates come election day on March 12. That’s because they recognize all those standard bearers who were duly elected or endorsed as per the Party’s constitution, but who recognize Moses “Shyne” Barrow as the rightful leader of the Party. The only area where Panton and her team do not recognize a candidate from the Barrow camp is in Mesopotamia, Barrow’s division. There, she says the constituency executive committee approached her after the October 20, 2024 TPUDP’s Alliance for Democracy unity convention and reported that they wanted a change of standard bearer, and they proceeded to effect that change, installing Lee Mark Chang as the rightful UDP standard bearer. In this vein, Panton affirmed, “We understand that the price of inaction to dictatorship, the price of inaction as it relates to injustice, is too great a price for us to pay.”
Panton also delivered the message today to “the wider UDP family who have opted to remain with the status quo – for now…” that they have a place in the UDP under her leadership. She had indicated earlier that they “look forward to joining hands and hearts with you after we win the general elections on March 12th, 2025.”
Panton and the other senior members of her slate are unfazed by the fact that they are only presenting a slate of 15. She said that they have done their assessments and contended, “We have a path to 16 seats.” She added, “It will be Tracy for Albert again, and it will be Tracy for Belize.” As to the PUP, she remarked, “I don’t care how much incentives may be provided by our opponents. We are not for sale! We are not selling our souls, because we all know that Belize is better with the UDP. And the people of this country had to be reminded of that, and so we sat out one term. We are not sitting out another.”
On the matter of campaign financing, Faber declared from the sidelines, “We have more than him,” in a reference to Barrow. Panton for her part stated, “The question is, ‘is there ever enough?’ The demands are great. People see the election period as the time of feast[ing]. I would say that we will have the resources we need – both in cash and resources – to run a successful campaign and to win the elections on March 12, 2025.”
Speaking about the decision of the Election and Boundaries Commission for both UDP factions to use red but with a differentiating symbol, Panton says if they cannot come together before nomination day and a symbol is required, they are not opposed to designating one. However, she emphasized that the voters will know exactly who to vote for. In the case of Port Loyola where former area representative, Anthony “Boots” Martinez is also running and calling himself a UDP candidate, Panton clarified that the UDP candidate is Philip Willoughby and she believes that he has the wherewithal to pull off the win. However, she also noted that if a UDP-associated candidate wins, they will welcome them.
Asked about how the leadership dispute would unravel after the elections, Panton emphatically declared, “There is no way that Shyne Jamal Barrow is going to win his seat in Mesop. The people in Mesop will make that determination for the rest of us.”
The TPUDP intends to present its manifesto after nomination day, set for Monday, February 24.
The SBUDP (Shyne Barrow UDP) has not yet presented a slate.