And speaking of moments worth capturing - the press had an extended one today with UDP Leader Patrick Faber.
He hasn't spoken to the press for weeks - and the only public statement he made was after video emerged of him charging a door a the home of his baby's mother.
Since then, Faber has been put through the ringer by his own party - with multiple colleagues issuing statements deploring his behaviour. After that his party leadership was put in doubt by a strong recall petition, and then he was usurped as leader of the opposition in the Parliament.
It's been a rough three-plus weeks - and the party leader is under serious, sustained attack. But today he launched his own counter-offensive with a free spoken press conference at party headquarters where he took the head table all alone, no senior supporters flanking him.
Jules Vasquez was there:
Today at the press conference, Patrick Faber was cool, his body language betrayed neither worry nor stress - though, he concedes, he faces a firm formal challenge:
Hon. Patrick Faber, UDP Party Leader
"The party's chairman has confirmed to us in a central executive meeting last night that the threshold of one third of the signatures of the party's delegates have been reached with respect to the recall petition and that therefore the recall mechanism has been triggered, so the party is in the process of finalizing a date and other details for those delegates to vote on whether they wish for me to remain party leader."
Now, two-thirds of the 500 or so delegates must support this recall at a convention for him to be recalled. Faber has faced many conventions - he's won some, lost some - and he says he's ready for this one.
Hon. Patrick Faber, UDP Party Leader
"If by some reason I am recalled I will most humbly and respectfully step aside. Afterall I am a UDP and all the people who are saying start your own party and so on - rubbish that. I am a UDP, there is no way no how that I will depart from this party. So I will remain a UDP and I will have my chance if that is the case to get up to dust myself off and go at it again. I am 43 years old for the record, the prime minister is 60-61, the former prime minister is 70 years old, I could go home and sit down 10 years and come back. I could go home and sit down 20 years and come back and I want to make it absolutely clear to you that I love my party and that means swallowing some very difficult pills sometimes and nobody has done that in this party, well some will make a claim, more than I have. So they can't do me nothing, nobody in this party can't do me that I will hate to that extent that some of them are now displaying and that I will try to break up the party as a result of that. You have always seen me very graceful when I am defeated. You saw this in me in 2013, and I thought then that the forces were moving against me unfairly. You saw it again in February [2020]. I didn't run and hide, I didn't take days to come out and concede my loss, as others did. When I lost, however painful it was, I got on that stage and I clapped for my new leader. I will hope that they will do the same after I beat them in the recall."
And now, that's what it is another convention that Faber will face and one he believes he can win. And that's because the Party leader was contrite today:
Hon. Patrick Faber, UDP Party Leader
"While I regret and I have apologized and I will continue to apologize to my party and to all Belizeans in general for incidents in my personal life I am seeking help with weekly therapy sessions. I have done much soul searching, deliberation and council and I have determined that the unfortunate incident in my personal life does not render me unfit to continue to lead my party with the fortitude, experience and skill I have been honing since age 14. Should the recall fail I plan to keep on doing so with the same dedication with which I have done for the past 9 months."
But he says his domestic problems are just a ruse for those he calls haters to get at him:
Hon. Patrick Faber, UDP Party Leader
"The true motivation is their disagreement with the new direction with which this party leader has committed to being informed by the November 11th, 2020 general elections. I have committed and pledge to heal and build the party in a way that some feel threatens their future political relevance and resurgence."
"I am thoroughbred UDP and I give it may all and if all that you have against me is my personal issue and I conceded that personal issue is there and I am addressing it, then your concerns aren't really genuine, you have other intentions and it's a perfect storm of all the haters."
And from haters to backstabbers - he says those are the ones who turned on him in Parliament - including his own first deputy:
Hon. Patrick Faber
"I think he change came when Hon. Hugo Patt decided to sign the letter. I sought to speak with him for days and I did not get a response until I think it was maybe Wednesday night that he finally returned a call to me and he confirmed indeed that he had signed the letter. He said that he did so because members of his constituency, in particular the delegates of his committee were insisting that he do so. He intimated to me that it was not necessarily something ideal for him."
"I was saddened by that. I will not tell you otherwise. What has happened is allowable by our constitution and so I fully yield to what has happened. People who are wondering whether or not I will sit beside the new leader of the opposition and work for my party, absolutely. I am elected by the people of the Collet constituency, I serve the United Democratic Party and there is nobody who will stop me from arriving in that house, God willing to represent the people of Collet."
"I felt every much that move by parliamentarians was a bit premature. I was disappointed that three persons pulled rank here and in fact made a decision that will affect the entire party. As we speak I am told that the new leader of the opposition is firing a senator and hiring a new one. So without any consultation with me as the leader of the party, without any consultation with anybody, other parliamentarians - but that is his right as the new leader of the opposition."
"I would walk away, the burden of having your colleagues shoot you, stab you in your back, torment you, is not an easy burden. When it is you have done nothing to your colleagues in the party. If you had done something then fine, that warrants that. But honestly, I don't think I deserve the treatment of being stabbed in the back."
"But there are thousands of supporters in this party who message me on a daily basis with great concerns that if I don't hold the fort in this party, that If I don't continue to try to forge the kind of change that Belizeans demanded, sent a loud signal to us on November 11th, that we want change, that we want to clearly define a new party. We don't want a corrupted version of the party and that was a very real message."
Faber alluded to plotters - and named his long time opponent John Saldivar:
Hon. Patrick Faber, UDP Party Leader
"Desperate people do desperate things, I am not quarrelling, but I am trying to paint the picture of the agenda that is behind there. No doubt Mr. Saldivar's views, his feelings, it is plan that this is a drive for him. Long before the incident of the video, Mr. Saldivar was going around the country. You had ask me about my first appearance on Uncut, Jules Vasquez, he was going around the country preaching gloom and doom and trying to instigate a change against my leadership, which is not something that is new to him, by the way. The name Caucus for Change, in case you don't remember. I know you know Mr. Vasquez, you've been around long enough, but the name Caucus for Change originated back in the late 1990s I'd say headed by the same John Saldivar trying to form a coup to depose the Hon. Dean Oliver Barrow. Strange how politics made for strange bedfellows now."
Jules Vasquez, reporter
"Sir you referred to plotting and scheming, who is doing the plotting and who is doing the scheming? You mentioned earlier that there were strange bedfellows involved. I am saying are you imputing that perhaps the former leader, your predecessor has a hand in the current affairs in the party. Is that your...?"
Hon. Patrick Faber, UDP Party Leader
"Well I thought I made it very clear that I would not get in to creating those kinds of distractions this morning. So be happy that I said something, but I will not take it any further."
Jules Vasquez, reporter
"However, this is just a follow up: so you do believe that there are moving hands behind all of this?"
Hon. Patrick Faber, UDP Party Leader
"Absolutely. Those who are, let me put it this way and this is a gentle way of me putting it - hungry for power in this party may plunge this party so much further into oblivion that it would be very difficult to bring it back."
"I concede that there are situations where my temper has gone way off and that is a matter that I need to address. In my view there are only a few people who can trigger me in that way, but the fact that it can happen warrants the kind of help I am now seeking."
"You know and ultimately if they succeed, as those of you who have been in the media for a while know I've been studying politics for a while, the same knife that sticks sheep, sticks goat, so when it is one of them, if the recall should be successful arrives at that location and you are at the whim of a very erratic leader of the opposition, any number can play any day."
And Faber made the pitch to the press - much like the one we expect he will make to the delegates that he's really the only choice:
Hon. Patrick Faber, UDP Party Leader
"It is a tremendous gamble for anyone who's listening, you have a party leader who has won 5 general elections without fail. They say I have a blemish, I concede that blemish, I am working on that blemish. Is it not easier for you to put up a 5-time champion who in fact is exemplary in the parliament, unless you say otherwise Jules Vasquez and I am sure you can. Is it not a smarter move than to put somebody who we don't even know will win a seat to lead your party."
