Email

Print

But while he's projecting that he's not too worried about the possibility of a recall convention, he says he is worried about what this petition is doing to the party. He explained that this is a distraction that only works in the favor of the PUP. Barrow believes the party should be focused on other more pressing issues:

Hon. Shyne Barrow, Leader of the Opposition
"It certainly gives me no pleasure, not necessarily for the sake of myself, but for the sake of the party to have to continue this cycle which I believe has always been engineered and sustained by external forces, whether it be PUP special interest groups who want to keep the government of the day in power, because when these things happen, all it does is distract from very serious issues. Don't appreciate the distraction, but this is a democracy and the constitution of the party does have a provision to trigger a recall. But I must tell you that I don't know where this recall will go, because many of the signatures from what I have been reported to me by people who signed under fraudulent circumstances. I actually just left 3 people who said that the reason they gave them for signing had nothing to do with a recall, so I said well, didn't you read what signed? and they said well no, they just told me to sign this paper."

"There have been many retractions, so I don't know, I heard they barely pass the threshold and so I don't know how far this will go."

"I would say that what are we going to do? go back to another convention with the same two people? Let us respect democracy. Mr. Cuthkelvin who brought in, I'm surprised. It wasn't a very smart move on their part to have the person who has been campaigning against me since I got elected. Literally, the first week of my election he was paying for ads on Channel 7 and when I say PUP special interest, where is Mr. Cuthkelvin getting $12,000 a month to pay for ads? That's the cost of the ads that they run on Channel 7 alone. I don't know if they run on the other stations and he is the one that brings the petition."

"They say that the delegates don't want me. In the convention, they got 253 votes and I got 256. Why didn't the come with 253 signatures today? I could tell you that they didn't do that. They barely pass right at the 200 mark."

Reporter
"What about the people who brought in the petition? have you resolve that conflict with them?"

Hon. Shyne Barrow, Leader of the Opposition
"Well again, Mr. Delroy Cuthkelvin is no longer a member of the party, so I don't even know how he is bringing in a petition."

"The vice chairman just went before the ethics committee for violating the constitution by publicly attacking me and other members. In an effort for unity, in a effort to stabilize things, the ethics committee in their wisdom allowed for an undertaking that he would take down all of the posts that he has and would refrain from further actions."

"But I have done everything I can to reconcile with Mr. August. I've done everything I can to reconcile with the member from Collet and the member from Alberts, but I cannot stop and the party cannot be held hostage by 2 or 3 people. It doesn't matter how senior they are. It doesn't matter how many times they've won their seat. The party belongs to all of us."

When August was asked whether he and the others who collected the signatures were in fact dishonest with the delegates, he said he "did not want to go down that road."

We should note that a recall petition - if it has the necessary signatures - then triggers a recall vote. And if the leader is recalled through that vote, then the party would have to go to another leadership convention. If that is to happen, the current suggestion is that the opponents of Shyne Barrow - cycling though these throes of upheaval - would then support Tracy Teagar Panton - since Patrick Faber has multiple domestic incidents tagged to his name. But, in truth…it's the UDP, the saddest soap opera this side of Days of Our Lives - meaning, who knows what will really happen? Either way, we'll keep following it.