Barrow says AFD’s Convention is a “Farce”  

According to Barrow, the party’s constitution does not allow the appointment of an interim chairman. He said that a party convention cannot proceed without a duly elected party chairman. Barrow says that the U.D.P. will not reduce itself to what he described as a “farce”.

 

Moses “Shyne” Barrow, Leader, U.D.P.

“This idea that you have a one-fourth petition, but you don’t need the party chairman to call a meeting to order to preside over the event? You don’t need the secretariat for checks and balances, for scrutiny, for election integrity? It’s absolutely absurd, Marion. I don’t see how you guys get around that. If there was maybe one  from the ranks then you could maybe understand, but it is not even the party leader that can conduct a national convention. It is the party chairman. In his absence, it would be the deputy chairman. In the deputy chairman’s absence, it would be the secretary general. You had none of that. So what you’re saying now is that because these people are aggrieved, because in their opinion,  they are not happy  that they can do away with everything. And that is why we said they formed their own party. There’s no way under the UDP constitution that that could survive. There is no provision by which to appoint an interim chair, then begin the proceedings. You need to begin the proceedings, then you, you do your voting. There is no, there is nothing, and I just, I understand the provision that you quoted, but show me where it says that  a national convention can proceed  with no party chairman, no secretariat.  No deputy chairman. You can just proceed. Who calls it to order Marion?”

 

Marion Ali

“Let me pose this question to you, Mr. Barrow… but since the issue of the delegates and the validity of the list has come forth has the secretariat..

 

Moses “Shyne” Barrow

“That’s not a UDP. What you’re asking, what you’re asking the UDP to do is to reduce itself to this farce, to this circus. This is fraud and deception by people  who have all been accused of corruption. So that’s another thing you need to look at. This is what the Americans were talking about when they spoke of significantly corrupt. Who is behind this? John Saldivar. Edmond Castro accused him of being corrupt. What you are asking the UDP to do is to even dignify this farce by saying, oh, so who are we going to ask to see the delegates list when, ma’am, the way a convention proceeds is that all of these things have to be done before the convention proceeds. You don’t do it after the fact. So, it’s a complete farce, complete fraud and deception and the onus is on them to go to a court of law and let the court say otherwise. Until then, you have a duly elected leadership executive where there was no controversy, there was no discrepancy. I got elected along with other leaders, fair,  transparent, in free elections. What happened on Sunday, if you want to link that to UDP, was a farce. What we believe happened on Sunday was an Alliance for Democracy party convention.”