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A transition, but not an orderly one.   After an inconclusive meeting yesterday in Belmopan, where the 31 UDP area reps, ministers and standard bearers were unable to agree on who should lead, UDP optimists - like Aragon - are trying to see the "reset" as a as a chance for renewal.  Any member of the national assembly can put in his name as a candidate for leader.  We already told you that Cayo North's Omar Figueroa is being urged to do so, and now we are reliably informed that President of the Senate Darrell Bradley is feeling out the waters.  He made an appearance earlier this week on one of the morning talk shows - and today we saw this little flier going around, again floating his name as a possible candidate.

Suspecting that it might have come to this, at the convention 12 days ago, we asked him about just such an eventuality - and as usual, Bradley went around in a few circles of locution:

Jules Vasquez
"But a lot of people feel that if John Saldivar wins, depending on what happens in Utah, he may be the leader for a week right? Real talk; I'm saying that the UDP may end up in a desperate state of not having any leader. Is that something that in a wild fantasy and we live in wild times, you would consider doing is the party say, bwai, all fall down, John can't be leader."

Darrell Bradley
"I've never made a secret of the fact that I've always vied for elected office in this country and I think I've said it before that when one vies for elected office, one wants to make a significant contribution at the highest level. I'm not thinking about, I'm a supporter of the UDP, I'm a supporter of this process."

We note that as President of the Senate - Bradley is a member of the National Assembly. But without a seat in the House of Representatives, a Senator as party leader going into a general election is considered politically untenable, since he could not become Prime Minister - if his party were to win.