Last night, we showed you our interview with PUP's Valerie Woods, who is contemplating challenging her Senate colleague, Paul Thompson in a contested convention to be the Standard Bearer for the Albert Division.
She has told us that she will make a final decision tomorrow, but we wondered. If she does challenge him, will that cause a rift in the party?
These types of challenges can often turn messy for mass parties, with infighting erupting behind closed doors.
You've already seen something like that between Gilroy Usher Sr. and Dr. Candice Pitts, who made a statement blasting her party after it refused to allow her to challenge Usher in a contested convention.
We asked Woods if something similar could take place between her and Thompson:
Daniel Ortiz
"You're going up against a heavyweight from the Albert division Mr. Paul Thompson who was here during the days of Mark Espat. He has a head start over you so to speak - do you see that as a disadvantage, should you say I will run here?"
Senator Valerie Woods
"Not necessarily. Daniel if there were so many advantages to that then the Albert division should have been brought in for the municipal election and the 2015 general election we should have won that. Yes I'm aware of the history of my colleague, I worked with these colleagues as well way back when let's put it that way and no I'm not deterred at all by it."
Daniel Ortiz
"Do you think if you decide to go against Mr. Thompson it will negatively affect you're working relationship and possibly your personal relationship with the gentleman?"
Senator Valerie Woods
"I would hope not, I don't see why not. I'm a professional at what I do and so is Paul and I would not entertain any reason, I couldn't envision why that would be the case."
Daniel Ortiz
"Hypothetically speaking you decide to run and you manage to defeat Paul, you're also going up against the incumbent Tracy Panton. Do you feel that if the people of Albert say that you should be the PUP standard bearer that you have a reasonable chance of defeating her in the general elections - should all of those things line up."
Senator Valerie Woods
"That's a lot of ifs there Daniel (laugh). Listen let's take this thing one step at a time, let's get to Friday and then after that if we're there and the gates are open let's run this contested convention."
We'll try to find out tomorrow what her final decision is, but it appears that her interest in the Albert's Division has already caused some friction.
This morning, Woods made a post on her Facebook page which says, quote, "Trying to bully me or scare me to "take" another division will not work. You don't get to tell me where to run, when to run, and how high to jump. I'm nobody's puppet. Politics for those men who already are on their nasty attacks has less to do about their interest of people and more about their own self interest and preservation." End quote.
We did try on successive days to get a comment from the present caretaker Paul Thompson.
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