Today, the UDP group of 31 met at the Cabinet room in Belmopan. Their mission? To find the way forward for the party after its new leader elect, John Saldivar had to resign within 72 hours of taking the oath.
And, tonight, the news is that there is still no clear replacement: no Patrick Faber, no Hugo Patt, no Omar Figueroa. Here's what we found out when we went to Belmopan:
Ministers and Party officials arrived earlier today. But most of them came in through the back which the GSU had sealed off - from what threat we don’t know.
But it seems there were there mostly to keep the press away from the back entrance. Which made all the heavy artillery seem a bit much.
The meeting lasted for over two hours and just after 12:00, we saw a few of the political leaders start to leave
And senior ministers Anthony Boots Martinez and Michael Finnegan gave us the bottom line, while Chairman Mike Peyrefitte filled in the details:
Hon. Anthony Boots Martinez - UDP Area Rep
"Well, there’s no leader."
Reporter
"There is no leader? There is no smoke coming out?"
Hon. Anthony Boots Martinez
"No white smoke and there’s no pope."
Hon. Michael Finnegan - UDP Area Rep
"We had a very productive meeting. There are only good things coming from here today."
Reporter
"Sir but the UDP has a leadership crisis. It just had a big convention. It has no leader."
Hon. Michael Finnegan
"We don’t."
Reporter
"So, who will lead? You will lead?"
Hon. Michael Finnegan
"There is always a solution to things, and we are close to."
Reporter
"And the solution is which person, sir?"
Hon. Michael Finnegan
"(gives the dirty look)"
Hon. Michael Peyrefitte - UDP Chairman
"The party will have a national party council and at that national party council we’re going to set a date for people to hand in their names who are interested in becoming the new party leader. And also sometime after that for a convention date. We may have just one person applying for the position or we may have several persons applying for it. We just have to wait and see now."
Reporter
"Sir, who will those persons be? Might they include John Saldivar and Patrick Faber?"
Hon. Michael Peyrefitte
"I don’t know, Jules to be honest with you. The NPC will set a date for people to submit their names and we will see what names come."
Reporter
"But if John Saldivar is in there will the UDP allow that?"
Hon. Michael Peyrefitte
"Well, we go through a process whenever anybody submits their name for any position in the party. So, we will go through the usual process and form there make a decision."
Reporter
"Which way will the UDP go, Sir? Will it go with Patrick Faber? Will it go with, some are saying Omar Figueroa? Which way will it go?"
Hon. Anthony Boots Martinez
"Well, that wasn’t the discussion here today, Sir. The discussion here was to chart an early timeline to have an NPC and set the dates for opening and closing of application and then see where we go from there."
Reporter
"Would you all have preferred to come out of this meeting today with a clear consensus of all okay, let’s go into an endorsement convention with ex-name because of the 31 here a supermajority or unanimity support ex-person?"
Hon. Michael Peyrefitte
"That would be the cleanest way. But we, although we are united, we’re a democratic party. So, we have to go through the democratic process. As unstable or as wild as that may be, democracy is what we are founded on."
Reporter
"Sir why was today’s meeting a failure? Is it that in terms of it failed to arrive at that clean conclusion that would have been best for the party, politically and internally? The persons who are interested in the job failed to get a majority of the support?"
Hon. Michael Peyrefitte
"The goal of the party today not to come up and emerge with a new leader. That was not the goal. So, we didn’t fail. We were very successful today in that all 31 people at least, or good 99% of them, got up and said how they felt about the present state of the party. That was the goal of today and I think that went well."
Reporter
"So, this sounds like counselling?"
Hon. Michael Peyrefitte
"No, not counselling. We met as a party to have a discussion going forward."
Reporter
"Sir, the UDP is in a very undesirable position, objectively. You just had a grand convention to select the leader. Only 11 days ago. And here you are now, leaderless and unclear on who will lead. Now having to go back into another complicated and costly party process. How did we get to this?"
Hon. Michael Peyrefitte
"We are not leaderless. The leader of the United Democratic Party is the honourable Dean Barrow. We have a leader and I’m sure that as challenging our position as we are right now, the PUP would do anything to be in our position. So, I don’t think we’re in a bad position, we are in a transitional period."
Hon. Anthony Boots Martinez
"There was, there was call for us as a party to look on the best candidate to put the best foot forward on behalf of the party and the hope that we will come out of that room with a beautiful white smoke as if a pope has emerged as the leader of the United Democratic Party."
