by Colin Hyde

This must be a series, yes. I think this is the third time I’m visiting that absorbing UDP National Party Council meeting that decided narrowly that John deserved to be in the Belmopan race on February 5.

On December 2, 2022, a UDP Special Committee selected by present leader Shyne Barrow, who won the position because former party leader John Saldivar threw all his weight behind him, ruled against Saldivar running in a February 5, 2023 convention to determine a standard bearer for the party in Belmopan. This Special Committee decision came after the mighty USA had declared John to be a “significantly corrupt” person. On December 17, 2022, the UDP’s National Party Council, which John had called on to hear his case, convened via Zoom, and in a 43-39 vote with very notable abstentions, John eked out the pass to have his name on the ballot in February.

That Queen Street got ahold of the UDP Party Council’s vote at BelChina would have been a coup, had the meeting not been via Zoom. You bet saliva flowed, even from ordinarily disinterested mouths when Queen Street announced that it had all, all of the numbers. Much has changed in this world since Covid; maybe the UDP just didn’t care who in this country knew how the members of the Council voted.

Anyway, Queen Street got it, and shared it on their Morning Vibes show, and that’s how people who are not usually in the know came to know who’s for John, who isn’t, and who didn’t give a daam. Notable among the “don’t-give-a-daam” Reds was UDP deputy leader, Hugo Patt. To be very kind, maybe at the time of the Zoom the gentleman was feeling very sick, or he took a walk outside of his cane field and ended up lost in the forest. There can be no excuse for his just not being able to make up his mind.

But Hugo Patt wasn’t the most notable abstention. That title goes hands down to Sista B, and that’s because the move against John was led by her nephew, Shyne, the son of her brother Dean. In 2020, the Barrows — Dean, Sista B, and Shyne — had lined up behind John in a convention where he soundly whipped Patrick Faber, 342 to 227 and became the leader of the UDP, only to vacate the position mere days later. John would step down from the post he had worked for all his adult life because the party reportedly had found “proof” that he had been taking money from a man who stood accused of major impropriety in the US.

Sista B had never run for office prior to 2020. The story goes that she was her brother’s campaign manager, her sole business having been to secure victory for her brother in Queen’s Square, which she did, from 1984 to 2020. She must have been rewarded financially and filled with pride over her successes. There is talk that when her brother became PM, she was active in visiting offices to secure the interests of those she and her brother favored. Da soh di story seh. But in 2020, Dean decided not to run again. He could have, but “only” to serve as an area representative, he having served the maximum three terms as PM.

It is to be explained why Sista B stepped forward, what was the arrangement for her running for Queen’s Square in 2020. She must have told them she would not be a regular area rep. Never mind that, she won the seat, but the UDP got blown out at the polls. What has happened since has never been seen before. She has refused to represent her division in the House of Representatives. We have been told that there is nothing new under the sun. Well, there is, and you can check the records of the House if you are in doubt.

It has to be believed that instructions outside of Belize played a hand in John’s ignominious departure from leadership of the UDP just a few days after getting the crown, and that Dean Barrow’s son was privy to all that went on there. You’d have to be a truly innocent soul if you believed that in the run-up to his being crowned head of the UDP Shyne didn’t know that John’s candidacy would hit an American wall, meaning he was just “using” the Belmopan man to get over Patrick Faber and Tracy Panton.

Of course, John was using Shyne too, to help him hold on to a place in the party. But that can’t be a blot on John’s ledger, for Shyne is but a paper king. Without John’s crowd, he is without a base, and without Patrick and Tracy’s crowd, he doesn’t have a base. In politics, the world’s dirtiest game, those bohgaz cut some serious deals. We watched that Republican McCarthy guy in the US doing all kinds of contortions to get over as Speaker in their House. This game the brother Shyne played here with John, my, did the UDP not run one time on the slogan “it’s all about trust?”

All that intrigue leads us to Sista B’s incredible decision to slide the Party Council vote. Throughout the decades her involvement in the political workings of the UDP had been about serving her brother, Dean. Sista B clearly backed John over Patrick, and backed her nephew against Sista Tracy, both positions being glove fits with what both Dean and the leader of the Caucus, John, wanted.

The Special Committee selected by Shyne and his colleagues moved to send John to the showers, but before he got wet, John called for a Party Council vote. The Caucus stood by their man. Shyne needed every ounce of support he could get. It’s not easy to figure out why Patrick Faber was blocked from voting when he was a sure vote against John. Were the new UDP leader and his crowd so sure they would win? Tracy voted to kick John to the curb, on principle. How many non-Shyne supporters voted to block John? And, and why did his auntie wash her hands?

This no-vote, it won’t go away. What’s the innards here? It’s possible that Sista B is flat tired with the party. She has been in the trenches with her brother from the 1970s. Maybe she has a mean streak and she is just exhausted with being a dutiful sister. On the surface, it looks like her service was for Dean only. But Dean must have wanted his son to win, if only for his, Dean’s, fat ego. Was this message not relayed to his sister?

There is the question of the lady’s pride. Even the most humble of us have things or something in our lives that we won’t bend on. Did all that transpired over the past two years — suddenly against Patrick; for John; John must go; with John; and then, now, John must go; did all that make the lady feel like she was a tunuball? And Sista B is an elected representative now, and in politics Dean is a has-been, so she no longer needs him. This is an incredible no-vote. What the heck happened here?

In the end, her vote would not have won the day for her nephew. But in a public vote she was expected to support her nephew. Again, were the Barrows sure this vote would go their way?

I have nothing to say about the upcoming convention. All eyes are on Belmopan today, at a memorial service for the three victims in the terrible, terrible tragedy that occurred at the turn of the New Year. All eyes will be on Belmopan come Sunday, February 5, too. Like I said, I have nothing to say about this convention, oh, except for a few peripheral observations about the pot. There’s John, who put his hope in Shyne and got skewered. There’s John’s in-law, Colonel Lovell, and he must be an American favorite. And there is Emil Torres, whose claim to fame would be that he talks fast and sells cars, if he wasn’t the son of the very famous Ernesto, whose claim to fame is that he knows every rule in the book about the road that cars roll on.