And while the UDP may find common cause with the unions, right now do their voices even matter? The fact is the UDP has constantly failed to get 40% of the vote in two consecutive elections - which is pretty grim.
And on Monday as leader Patrick Faber travelled to San Ignacio to stand in support of his only two UDP councillors, Jules Vasquez asked where the UDP stands after its unprecedented fall from grace.
Jules Vasquez
"Has the UDP become, for the time being, irrelevant because of the reputational hit it has taken with the last three years when obviously everything fell apart, and is the UDP right now in a position where the less said the better?"
Hon. Patrick Faber - Leader of the Opposition
"Absolutely not you, I don't know how you come up with these questions you bring back the same things, over and over."
Jules Vasquez
"But I'm saying that's how people felt about the PUP in 2009. It is factual. It's unheard of, the slippage is unheard of sir."
Hon. Patrick Faber
"No Sir, No Sir it is not unheard of when a party has won three consecutive general elections which were unheard of so we were in the unheard-of territory a long time ago."
Jules Vasquez
"Unprecedented heights to Unprecedented falls, wow!"
Hon. Patrick Faber
"Exactly that may be a better way for you to describe it but does that make the party irrelevant, absolutely not, it sends a signal to the party that we need to better reflect what it is the people want but it does not make the UDP irrelevant, if that is your claim then we're really in deep waters because the UDP is the opposition of this country and it is why we take our role very seriously, while we do the business of re-building we have a simultaneous role that we keep the government in check and there can be no irrelevant about that."
Will The UDP Find Financing And while the UDP will return to relevancy in a few years - because that's how the political cycle goes - to do so they have to access financing. We asked the UDP leader how they plan to do that in this difficult time:
Redistricting Case May Face Settlement
The Belize Peace Movement, the citizen group that is pushing for redistricting of the 31 electoral divisions, is still in the Supreme Court. They are trying to ensure that the November 2020 General Elections will be the last one that occurs with the current constituency composition.
As viewers are aware, it has been accepted by multiple public figures that the way the divisions are currently set up, there is an imbalance in the country's democracy.
This morning, the BPM's case had a virtual hearing in the Supreme Court, and the news coming out of it is that there are talks to resolve it without a full trial. We got a late evening interview with their attorney, Arthur Saldivar, and he told us that he is encouraged by the discussions with the attorneys for the Government and the Elections and Boundaries Commission. Here's how he explained it to us:
If the matter has to proceed to trial, the presiding judge has scheduled it for the 14th of May.
Teachers Union President On Prospect of Schools Re-Opening
When will schools re-open? There is no clear answer to that question, even though the pandemic has forced its closure for over a year now. You may remember last month when Prime Minister John Briceno said publicly that his government is adopting a suggestion from his wife, the special envoy for families and children, Rosanna, that the safest way to reopen schools is for the teachers to be vaccinated from COVID-19.
So, when our colleagues from Plus TV news caught up with Senator Elena Smith, the President of the Belize National Teachers Union on Tuesday, she was asked about a possible timeline for the reopening of schools. Here's how that conversation went:
There are discussions ongoing about the high school and sixth form students who will have to sit their CSEC and CAPE exams later this year.
The Cattle Backdoor - Can It Be Formalized?
A week ago, we showed you the first bilateral meeting which Belize's Foreign Affairs Minister, Eamon Courtenay, held with his Guatemalan counterpart, Pedro Brolo Vila.
That occurred last Wednesday at the OAS Adjacency Zone in Benque Viejo, and the two foreign ministers have expressed a determination to forge strong, good-neighbourly relations through trade, and collaboration on shared challenges.
But does that include the cattle trade? The Briceno Administration has made much of re-opening trade - but it is still going through the back to Guatemala, so to speak. After Tuesday's Senate meeting, the press asked Foreign Minister Courtenay about the possibility of formalizing these relationships:
