Three years earlier, in December of 1971, UBAD?s first election ? an NIP/UBAD coalition for the Belize City Council, the election, in real terms, was over early, as early as 9, 10 p.m. on counting night at St. Mary?s Hall. PUP were winning big. The then Opposition NIP had 6 candidates; UBAD had only 3. But whereas the middle-aged (and older) NIP gave up early and went home, the young and inexperienced UBAD stayed all night at St. Mary?s, until the break of day, when we came down the St. Mary?s steps to the jeers of the PUP crowd in the street. There were no NIP around in the early morning light ? it was UBAD vs PUP. (PDM had boycotted.)

I mention the 1971 night at St. Mary?s to explain what happened at Matron Roberts in 1974. When I went upstairs of Matron Roberts to look at the counting process around 8:30 p.m. or so, it only took me 10 or 15 minutes to realize the election was all about Harry Courtenay and Kenneth Tillett. After St. Mary?s, I?d learned my lesson. My brother stayed around, but I left the scene and went to Partridge Street, where I hung out for a few hours then went home, West Canalside, to sleep.

When I awoke and began percolating the following morning, the general elections were over. PUP had won, but the Collet election, specifically, was not over. The PUP and UDP supporters were gathered around Matron Roberts, but the Collet issue was academic. It mattered only to Courtenay and Tillett, and my thesis is that Derek Courtenay outfought Karl Mahler through that long night into morning at Matron Roberts.

Months afterwards, my brother told me that Tillett had won the first counting, by 28 or so, but Derek asked for a recount, whereupon Mr. Tillett?s margin of victory was reduced. They recounted and recounted, until it was announced, around 9 a.m., that Courtenay had won by one ? a single vote. 1008 Courtenay; 1007 Tillett. Story done.

Mr. Tillett?s campaign manager, Michael Myvett (he wasn?t Finnegan yet), blamed Ken Tillett?s loss on the fact that Evan X Hyde had run in Collet and received 89 votes. According to the UDP, those votes would have gone to Tillett. I became a scapegoat.

The question is ? why should I not have had the right to run in Collet? Yes, I was young, just 27, but I had led UBAD for five years. I had lost my job because of fighting the PUP. I had lost my family. I had been tried twice in Supreme Court ? July 1970 and January 1971 ? because of fighting the PUP. I had supported the Opposition NIP in the aforementioned December 1971 Belize City Council election. I was raised and had lived most of my life in the Collet division. Why should I not have had this right?

In the summer months of 1974, the ruling PUP had been claiming that the proposed UDP candidate, Kenneth Tillett, did not satisfy the one-year residency in Belize electoral requirement. (He had been living in the United States, and was married to an American citizen.) In my simple mind, I believed that Tillett would be disqualified (he was popular, and the PUP were politically afraid of him), and then the UDP would have to do business with me in Collet. So, I kept my Collet candidacy alive. Okay, I made a mistake. The PUP allowed Tillett to run. I got caught in the middle of a fight between two elephants, and I was stubborn.

The result was that the UDP, who had been my friends until 1973, crushed me. And the PUP, who had been my enemies until 1974, came to see me early in 1975. They offered to make the peace. We held negotiations, and made a deal.

My character was smeared, but it was a bum rap, as the Americans would say. The UDP were on a roll, and you couldn?t say anything to them in those days. But they should set the record straight before it?s too late.

There are people in the UDP who want to talk to me. I believe they know there is no possibility of my supporting their party in any electoral process. But there are nationalists in all the parties, and we are nationalists on Partridge Street. When we criticize the PUP, it is not because we are UDP. It is because we are nationalists. As such, we have no problem in holding talks with UDP leaders and thinkers at any level.

Still, we need to get 1973 and 1974 straight. The people for whom all the argument was about, Harry Courtenay and Ken Tillett, are both out of the electoral picture. In fact, in an instance of great political irony, Ken Tillett ended up working with the PUP in the 1990?s. And I still believe I had the right to run in Collet in 1974.

Time is the proof to all things.

Amandala. Power to the people.