Does Leader of the Opposition Shyne Barrow live in a safe house? For those not familiar with the political lingo - a safe house is an address which PUDP politicians load up with phantom voters - who don't live in the Constituency - they're just registered there and magically appear to vote for their UDP or PUP patron on election day.
Well, the PUP says Shyne Barrow lives in one of these houses - a bungalow where his is registered along with 8 other voters.
They took that objection to court today to have him struck from the list - and who did he get to defend him? None other than the man who once ran against his father,Dean Barrow in Queen's Square: Attorney Dickie Bradley.
This afternoon at the magistrate's court we met Bradley who was called in to clear up the matter.
Dickie Bradley, Attorney
"This afternoon none other than the leader of the opposition which is a post created by the constitution of Belize. We take it for granted because it is party politics but the leader of the opposition sometime ago went to the registering office in the Mesopotamia division and presented all the requirements that the law requires and asked to be transferred to a residence in the Mesopotamia area and in fact the persons here are witnesses who were prepared to take the witness stand and to confirm that they know he goes there they know he stays there they see him there. In fact, one resident who is here informed me that in fact he lives at the residence and he is prepared to vouch that Shyne is an occupant at that residence.However when a person gets on the voters list either as a new voter or a transferred voter the law is that other red fishers voters in the constituency can object and come to the court in front of the revising officer to say that we can prove that the voter does not live at the address."
"But what has happened is that there were two objectors to the honorable Moses Michael Levi Barrow, AKA Shyne Barrow, that he ought not to be on the voters list in the Mesop Division and that has failed. The Chief Magistrate as the revising officer has struck it out upon being satisfied that the registering office followed all the legal requirements."
"It is now at rest. Yes, you could probably start to throw the dirt over the coffin. It's dead. It's dead because the two voters in the constituency who raised the objection have failed to come to the court to say this is the evidence we have."
The case was struck out after the objectors failed to show up today in court. According to Bradley, Shyne's opponents are just playing politics.
