7 News Belize

Arthur Again With The PUP
posted (August 22, 2018)
The PUP's National Executive had a meeting this afternoon at Independence Hall, and it had two important agenda items to discuss.

We'll tell you about both, but the item making headline news tonight is that the Executive invited Arthur Saldivar to address them on his candidacy for the Belmopan Convention that has been denied twice now.

Since last Friday, we've shown you the back and forth between Saldivar and the leadership of the party after this second denial. Opposition Leader John Briceño's comments from last Friday suggested a final and resolute "no" to Saldivar's candidacy. But, the executive requested his presence, and he showed up out of courtesy. After he was given his opportunity to speak, the executive deliberated for a third time on whether or not to allow him to run in this Sunday's convention.

After Saldivar had his audience with them, we spoke to him outside of Independence Hall, and here's what he had to say about what he hopes will be the outcome of yet another decision on his political fate:

Arthur Saldivar, Still wants to Run in Belmopam
"I received a call from the secretary general of the party Mr. Linsford Castillo, inviting me to attend an executive meeting today and he followed that up with an email where the same thing was presented. I am here in good faith to attend that meeting and I have gone upstairs. The expectation I had was that they would be asking me certain questions about certain things, in terms of my candidacy and what have you. I was given a chance to speak and I did that. At this particular juncture certainly one can only hope that reconciliation is the all thing. But that's a hope. My supporters in Belmopan who are behind me who have urge me to do everything in my power to be in a position to represent them as a member of the People's United Party. This is a part of that effort. As you know as a member of the party, the party has a constitution. I am given certain rights. If I have a right and I don't defend it, I cannot seek to defend the rights of anybody else. So I I have done my part to defend my right. That's all this is. There is nothing personal. I hold no ill will against anybody."

Daniel Ortiz, reporter
"So we are here for a third time they could deny you, your candidacy? Is that something that's been in your mind this afternoon?"

Arthur Saldivar, Still wants to Run in Belmopam
"Again, this is not about me. It's not a matter of denying me. It's a matter of denying the people of Belmopan the opportunity to exercise their franchise for the person they believe is best capable of representing them in Belmopan. I don't know if I am that person, but certainly I believe I deserve to be a part of the number for which that decision is to be made and I have many supporters who are of that view."

After the meeting, Chairman Henry Charles Usher gave the press a briefing on the entire meeting, and we asked him to share the results of the Executive's third deliberations on Saldivar's candidacy for this weekend's convention. Usher said that Saldivar had not been informed as yet, and so he was not prepared to discuss it today:

Henry Charles Usher, Chairman - PUP
"We had a regular of the national executive this afternoon and there were various items on the agenda. There was an update on the upcoming conventions for the party. As you may recall we had started the convention process in April and we continued right up to the end of June. We took a pause for the July and August re-registration period and we are going to start again next month. One of the conventions coming up is this Sunday in Belmopan and in that regard we invited Mr. Arthur Saldivar to address members of the national executive this afternoon and until we inform Mr. Saldivar of the decision of the national executive, I don't want to make it public at this time."

"We are planning for a convention on Sunday. We have 3 candidates vying for the position in Belmopan and we will be carrying out that convention this Sunday on behalf of the party."

Reporter
"You said you have 3 candidates running on Sunday. That sort of X-out Mr. Saldivar..."

Henry Charles Usher, Chairman - PUP
"In any event if we have a convention on Sunday we need to have the persons who are on the ballot for Sunday."

Reporter
"We understand that Mr. Saldivar has already filed a second claim to address the application process that he was invited to re-apply."

Henry Charles Usher, Chairman - PUP
"I am not been served with any claims as yet, so I can't really comment on it, because I don't really know what he would be claiming this time. We have heard that there may be a claim filed, but we have not been served as yet."

Reporter
"So you will not be able to comment on his points brought up in the letter to the secretariat either?"

Henry Charles Usher, Chairman - PUP
"In reference to the letter, the attorney for Mr. Saldivar raised a number of issues. We don't agree with the issues and certainly if those issues are raised in court we will certainly defend against them."

Reporter
"Sir, the last time there was this same assertion that the party would defend against the claim and we subsequently learnt that the claimant Mr. Saldivar got a default judgement against you and the party."

Henry Charles Usher, Chairman - PUP
"Yes. What happened there is that we were operating on a basis of good faith, that because the application had been re-open for him to submit his application and for us to review it and for the vetting committee to actually have a deliberation on it - we were under the impression and really the understanding that the case would have been delayed until that process was finish. We subsequently found out that that was not the case, that Mr. Saldivar did proceed to apply for a default judgement. We have now applied to set aside that judgement and also we are submitting a full defense to the claim."

So, at this time, we haven't been able to confirm if Executive has refused Saldivar a third time, but there is speculation that this attempt did not yield any better results than the last two. So, the next step right now is for Saldivar to follow through his second lawsuit in the Supreme Court. That's scheduled for Friday morning at 10, and we understand that Saldivar will be pressing for an urgent injunction to stop this weekend's convention.

Again, the press challenged Saldivar on the prudence of fighting this uphill battle. Here's what he had to say to that:

Arthur Saldivar, Still wants to Run in Belmopam
"This meeting that was being held was outside the ambit of what was already communicated to me and what is already before the court. My attendance here was without prejudice. It has no impact on the matter that was filed in court on Monday. Again, I wanted to be abundantly clear, there is always my fervent hope that maturity and good sense prevails within the party that I belong to, because this is really embarrassing. Embarrassing for an institution of the vintage of the PUP, the oldest democratic institution in the country, to be behaving undemocratically, not understanding the basic principles of due process which requires that natural justice be applied."

"Even if the goalpost was being moved by this meeting that was called to today, it would be a farce. Because members are there who would be deliberating on the issue that should not have been there. They themselves being tainted with bias. Having been a part of a legal proceedings before. This party is not a small party that is only limited to 5-6 people. This is a mass party with tens of thousands of members, with an executive that is large. More than 60 people in its totality. So it cannot be said that an objective group could not have been convened to deliberate on a matter of constitutional importance."

"We must wright the ship. The ship is about to capsized with all of us in it. It is incumbent upon me to assist in wrighting the ship, so I will do what I can and if this is all I can do - have the matter be ventilated in court so that we can all appreciate where the errors are being made, then so be it."

We'll be at court on Friday to tell you how the start of his second lawsuit goes.

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