Leader of the Opposition Shyne Barrow has been occupying the public's imagination over the past two weeks with his return trip to the US - 13 years after he was deported.
But, one man who is not impressed is his party leader Patrick Faber. Faber wants Barrow to step aside and hand back over his seat as Leader of the Opposition.
Barrow usurped Faber back in June - with the support of two of the UDP's five representatives in the House.
Appearing on LOVE's morning show today Faber said it's only natural that the party leader - if he is an elected representative - should be the leader of the opposition:
Hon. Patrick Faber, UDP Party Leader
"The leader of the party is in the house and it is why I believe majority of those in the party believe that this ought to be the case. Listen, if you sit in our central executive meetings and even now, I'm convinced that if you speak to the majority of those former candidates of the party, you will understand that those person want to see the leader of the party be the leader in parliament as well. Colleague, the leader of the opposition of course seems to think that he needs to do everything separate from the party, he puts out his own releases, he has his own press conferences I see now - so these kinds of things hamper the unity of the party and we'd like to see that change very quickly."
"Ultimately, the leader is the leader. I mean a thing was tried in terms of the recall convention, that was not successful and we ought to honor what the constitution says and that's not just coming from me, that's coming from the wider membership of the party and leadership of the party. Again, the situation is being prolonged, if you will, because just a few individuals are involved and ensuring that things don't go the way the majority of this party wants it."
And, Faber hinted that he is very close to breaking Shyne's hold on a majority of the representatives in the House - because, as he portrayed it, Deputy Leader and Corozal North Rep, Hugo Patt is wavering in his support for Shyne:
Hon. Patrick Faber, UDP Party Leader
"I will tell you that one member is the Hon. Hugo Patt, I've spoken to Hugo a number of times and Hugo has said to me listen, on principle I believe you should be the leader of the opposition. Where he is doing his soul searching, we are hoping that that soul searching process reveal something very soon so that we are able to come to a resolution and like you try and many other Belizeans we want to see one leader of the opposition and one leader of the party."
And while - to hear Faber tell it, he is close to re-uniting the party leader with the Leader of the Opposition post - he says that the former party leader is also running interference against him - with a moving hand in the background:
Hon. Patrick Faber, UDP Party Leader
"While the former leader does not outrightly and of course he tries his best to be very non-bias in the description of the situation yesterday, his hands continue to move. I will not lie to anybody and that's a part of the issue, but as I said I won't get into all the nitty gritty, because it's not healthy for our party."
You can hear Shyne's response to all that tonight on Uncut at 7:30 here on Channel 7.
