Photo: Hon. Moses “Shyne” Barrow meets Eastern Region Standard Bearers and standard bearer applicants
SBUDP to field full slate while TPUDP plans fielding 18 candidates for general elections
BELIZE CITY, Thurs. Jan. 9, 2025
After a 4-hour meeting on Friday, January 3, at the Collet Constituency Office of the Hon. Patrick Faber, the Tracy Panton United Democratic Party (TPUDP) announced that they would field 18 candidates (under the UDP banner) for the upcoming general elections. As to the date for the elections, the Prime Minister has now said these will take place sometime in the first half of this year. That is the furthest he was willing to go on Wednesday when asked for the date of the poll. However, as we have been reporting, there are strong rumours that the elections will be held in March. With that in mind, the Panton UDP (TPUDP) as well as the Moses “Shyne” Barrow UDP (SBUDP) are working to finalize their slates. At the same time, they affirm that they are open to mediation – as advised by the court.
Panton’s legal team notified the High Court by the deadline of January 6 that they were willing to go to mediation, and Barrow’s attorney, Dr. Christopher Malcolm later did the same, but stipulated the caveat that there has to be “genuine desire to have it work.” He believes, however, that there is no such intention on Panton’s part, and Barrow himself called Panton’s comments mere posturing.
During an interview with the Belize media earlier that day, the Jamaican attorney stated, “If you’re talking about mediation where somebody is not even prepared to honour an order of the court … how do you establish an atmosphere of mediation that anyone can be comfortable in?” Malcolm affirmed that “the Court confirmed, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that the leader of the Party – at least until such time as the court makes a decision to the contrary – is Moses ‘Shyne’ Barrow.” Malcolm added, “What the Court unconditionally said is that the status quo ante – that is to say, before the meeting of October 20, 2024, should be reverted, and that all the powers that vested in the leader prior to then (and the leader being Shyne Barrow) should be reverted, and that he has absolute power to confirm to do what he has to do.”
Photo: Hon. Tracy Taegar-Panton
However, today, Panton issued a release on a UDP letterhead setting the record straight that there is currently no order from the court that prevents her from referring to herself as “interim Party Leader.” We note that in his first order given on November 8, 2024, on the case, when he refers to status quo ante, High Court Justice Tawanda Hondora states, “i.e., the situation that existed prior to Ms. Panton’s 28 October 2024 takeover of the UDP headquarters.” Additionally, when he gave his second order on December 23rd, the Judge made no pronouncement on the December 6, 2024, application for contempt of court filed by Barrow against Panton. In the application, the grounds stated were that “The 1st Respondent has acted in such a manner, disregarding the pending substantive claim and the interlocutory order of Justice Hondora, so as to prejudice the Applicants in the minds of party delegates and right-thinking members of society before the substantive pending claim is heard and determined, by embarking upon a trial by media, in which she has held herself out as the UDP Party Leader.” Asked whether the contempt of court application has fallen by the wayside, given that the judge has not made any order in this regard, Malcolm said the matter is very much alive and is still pending to be heard. Today, Panton affirmed that she has abided by the Court’s order of November 8 and “has not since interfered with the Headquarters or the assets of the UDP.”
In that regard, Panton confirmed to Amandala today that they have established a UDP office in Mesopotamia to serve as a working space for their secretariat, as they “prepare for the upcoming General Elections.” Notably, this office is located on Euphrates Avenue across from Lee Mark Chang’s first Chon Saan Palace restaurant, and right around the corner from Barrow’s constituency office.
Photo: Tracy Panton’s UDP establishes secretariat on Euphrates Avenue around the corner from Shyne’s Constituency office
As to Barrow, on Tuesday he forwarded a photograph captioned, “Great meeting with the Regional Leader and Eastern Region Standard Bearers!” Included in the image was Jose Uc Espat, who, according to initial reports, would be pitted against Panton in Albert. However, at a press conference on Wednesday, Barrow said the photograph also included applicants for standard bearer for some of the 13 divisions in the Belize District, and that Espat was not the only applicant for Albert for the SBUDP. Espat himself later on Tuesday said he was still contemplating whether to run or not. Barrow said he has been touring the country to meet with standard bearers and that so far, he has met with those in the south and west, and is set to meet with the northern standard bearers shortly.
Addressing the option of mediation, Barrow said third parties (including non-aligned donors and stalwarts of the UDP) have proposed several options. He shared that a first option is for there to be a coalition including four members of the Alliance for Democracy (AFD) and the UDP. Those four are Panton herself, Dr. Omar Figueroa from Cayo North, Godwin Haylock from Queen Square and Patrick Faber. The second option is to have those four accepted back into the UDP fold and in return, the UDP will rescind the expulsions of Panton, Faber, John Saldivar and Beverly Williams. However, Barrow was emphatic in his position that in order for those four to run as UDP candidates again, “Tracy Panton needs to disabuse herself of the notion that she is any leader of any UDP. She’s not even a member of the UDP, as it stands.”
Another position that Barrow is steadfast on is in relation to Saldivar. He affirmed, “John Saldivar, in particular, as long as I am leader … we do not believe the likes of he and other former ministers who have been embroiled in corruption, who were routed in the last general elections, resoundingly rejected by the public as the type of politicians that the people of this country want nowhere near cabinet, nowhere near a ministry in order to continue their corrupt ways … need to understand that the decision as to who is suited to be candidates for the UDP resides with the party organs that are in the Central Executive.”
As to the likelihood of a clean sweep of the 31 divisions by a mass political party – an idea first introduced by political pundit, Dr. Dylan Vernon, Barrow affirmed that the Party has been working for the last three years to deliver victory in every constituency, and that while they have stayed some standard bearer candidacies to give a chance to mediation, all the applicants for standard bearers are stakeholders in their divisions, and they are ready to go. He therefore declared, “Have no doubt, this talk of a sweep will not happen! I appreciate the academics and the political pundits, and there is always a possibility of anything. There is a possibility that the UDP will form the next government and upset all of those naysayers.”
Referring to the removal of some of the current UDP standard bearers who support the Alliance for Democracy, Panton says they intend to challenge this in court as due process is not being followed.