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Jules Vasquez was there:

The conference room at the Collet Constituency office was dominated by the presence OF the four movers behind the Alliance For Democracy - a UDP splinter group who's trying to remove leader Shyne Barrow.

But, he moved them first - with the party's National Executive deeming them to have constructively resigned a week ago.

They reject that and still claim to be UDP's:

Tracy Panton, Alliance For Democracy
"The members who were constructively resigned by 15 members of the central executive committee would like to say categorically that we have not resigned from the United Democratic Party."

"We have not resigned. We will not resign. And we will be running for our respective constituencies in the next general election."

As the nominal leader of the group, Panton says they did try at mediation:

Tracy Panton, Alliance For Democracy
"We had hoped to have a press conference with you on Monday, but an appeal was made to us by other colleagues for us to come back to the mediation table, which we readily agreed to with one condition."

"We cannot come back to the mediation table unless there was a public retraction from the party that our of the declaration that we had effectively resigned from the party. It would mean going to the table with a gun to our head unless they were able to retract it."

"The party leader was clear that he would not accept that condition. He was only prepared to go as far as saying he would put a stay on filling the vacancies for the three constituencies where vacancies were made public - that is Belmopan, Collet and Albert. That is not acceptable to us. The party leader has rejected the request for a retraction. And we find that wholly unacceptable."

They say that the current leadership has variously violated the party constitutions to stack the party with loyalists::

Tracy Panton, Alliance For Democracy
"And maybe the most egregious is the removal of seven standard bearers of the United Democratic Party; Port Loyola, Caribbean Shores, Belize Rural South, Belmopan, Collet, Albert, and the threat of removing the member from Belize Rural Central."

"Because we have not seen that vacancy advertised as yet. There cannot be arbitrary removal of standard bearers. There cannot be arbitrary appointments of new standard bearers. There cannot be arbitrary removal of elected delegates to this party."

So, what next? They say they will have their own convention:

Tracy Panton, Alliance For Democracy
"The Alliance for Democracy will be making a public call for a special unity, UDP convention to be held on October 6 of 2024."

"This allows us the 30 -day notice that is required by the Constitution. The special convention will seek to do a few things. One, to look at the executive appointments to the party. Two, to pass a motion on the floor to recall the party leader and also a second motion that will seek to appoint an interim leader of the United Democratic Party until these matters can be straightened out at the subsequent convention to be held."

"We are members of the United Democratic Party. I finish where I started. We are not going anywhere."