So while the Tracy Panton executive and their allies are fully dug in at the UDP headquarters, it's not like Shyne Barrow and his executive have given up. They are uncharacteristically quiet - but they maintain that Panton has no legitimate claim to leadership.
Today we spoke to his chairman, Michael Peyrefitte, who basically told us the same thing Panton told us 9 days ago- it's JUST a building.
Michael Peyrefitte, UDP Chairman
"I'm confused. That Alliance party, I believe, I think it was their leader that said that a political party is not a building. But yet they seem very much interested in a building. Nothing has changed. What does it mean? What does it mean to occupy a building?"
Jules Vasquez:
"Well, it has symbolic value."
Michael Peyrefitte, UDP Chairman
"Well, I mean, yes. It has symbolic value. But there are a lot more issues to be concerned about than just symbolism. I mean, I know what the real alliance leader and the PUP want and wanted. What they wanted was for us to go there yesterday and have, at the very least, a fist fight with other people, to go there to there today getting to a fight. Then you have a big brawl, and then the public are saying, look, just when I thought the UDP couldn't get any lower, they've gotten even more. Well, they were not going to bait us into that. So if it makes certain people feel better to break the locks on the building and win, fine, if that's what makes them feel that there are ways of dealing with that. And we're investigating numerous ways to deal with that."
"And I think what the people are getting to see and people are asking themselves, because you talk about people attending a beer fest on a Sunday the other day, but there are tens of thousands of other UDP people out there who see it, who say to me, and have said to me after yesterday, I mean, look at the character of these people. I mean, you can tell a lot about a person when they can't get what they want. And imagine these people, that cast of characters that you saw yesterday, imagine them with some real power."
But Peyrefitte alleges the actions of the AFD is part of a bigger plan that even Panton is unaware of.
Michael Peyrefitte, UDP Chairman
"So we're not going to engage them that way, we're not going to match their thug behavior because that's what the PUP wants."
"That's what they want the country to be talking about. They don't want the country to be talking about the fact that they went to the House a couple weeks ago and asked for $110 million more to run this country. They don't want us to talk about the fact that they went to the National Assembly, lied to the country about building a hospital on the UB campus, and then buying a piece of land next to a ***obscenity*** creek to put this so called medical school. That that's what they want us to talk about. So all of this is a part of the plan to have Tracy try to damage show in the process damaging herself, and then that damages the UDP, and then that increases the chances even further for the PUP in 2025. And then the real leader of this alliance emerges and says, you see, I'm the best person to lead this party. That's the plan. And it is so sad that Tracy doesn't even see that."
"We had a convention last year like him or loathe him, we agreed that Shyne Barrow will be the leader of the UDP going into the 2025 elections. All Tracy had to do was wait. To be fair, even Shyne said if the UDP does not win more than 10 seats, I am gone. Nobody will have to chase me, I am gone. And in any event, there will be a convention. So why not just a little bit more time for that to come? Why is she allowing herself to be set up to destroy the UDP?"