As you heard in our story, no one wanted to tackle the issue of the Collett constituency head-on. Patrick Faber wasn't at the protest and, from our observation, neither was his spirited team of core supporters.
The man who would wish to replace him, Ian Jones, said he did bring out a crowd from the constituency, but as a 5 term representative, Faber is the man in Collet, and also the UDP's most senior elected politician.
So, his absence was significant but according to the chairman, not an event maker or breaker.
Reporter
"Sir, talk to us about the numbers and the fact that this is a protest that largely took place in Collet, are Collet constituency members out here with you?"
Michael Peyrefitte, Chairman, UDP
"We weren't looking for that we were looking for Belizeans not just from Belize city, but anyway you want to take it, the numbers were reduced because people were afraid that they would be arrested. They were worried that there would be mass arrests by the police department. I tried to reach out to the police department last night and had a good discussion that we would not be breaking any laws. We would not be provoking anybody to break any laws and once they cooperate then, and they show us respect then respect being mutual everything would go fine. I thought the commissioner had indicated that he did not have enough security forces to manage the demonstration but I saw at least 20 policemen out there, some with assault riffles so, I mean c'mon if they had the police do that they should have just said yes from the very beginning and have us had our demonstration but it went well under the circumstances."
"We are coming out of a pandemic and the UDP as it rebuilds and it gets stronger we will just have more of these that will be more and more impassioned and more and more successful as we go along."
