Should the Courts Determine the True Leadership of the UDP?

News Five also sought the insights of political scientist Doctor Dylan Vernon on the ongoing U.D.P. infighting that’s unfolding in the courts. With an election on the horizon, we asked him whether he thinks the High Court should be involved in determining the legitimacy of the party’s leadership. Doctor Vernon also shared his thoughts on the possibility of the fractured party losing all thirty-one seats in the House of Representatives.

 

Isani Cayetano

“In terms of the U.D.P., there is currently a claim that is before the High Court with respect to the leadership of the party.  Many would argue that that’s not necessarily the place for the court to determine how that proceeds.  What do you think would be the effect of this should there be an actual election called prior to the court being able to determine who, in fact, is the leader of the U.D.P.?”

 

Dr. Dylan Vernon, Political Scientist

“Well, if this happens, and I agree with you, because political parties are not registered in Belize there is no law, it seems to me, that a judge can look at and say well I will follow this.  Maybe there’s precedence in other countries that could be followed, but what I think will happen if the court does not rule before the election is that we will have, unless the two parties, I mean they are scenarios, the two parties can come and say, okay we’ll still get together as one U.D.P. That’s one scenario.  If it stays divided and tries to have candidates run in every constituency, then we’ll have a multi-party election and there could be other parties out there, smaller parties, and people are talking about the color of the ballots and all that, that to me is a trivial sort of, one: instead of having the colors being something that divides people, or maybe no red is used at all, they could use some other colors.  I think that would be the responsibility of the Chief Elections Officer to decide.  But we would have an election in that case where the U.D.P. and the Alliance for Democracy and other parties and the P.U.P. are all competing for seats.  Understanding how politics works and how electoral politics works, the U.D.P. would be in an even worse position to lose all of the thirty-one seats, if that were the case, because you divide the so-called opposition in every constituency.  Unless they have some agreement between themselves, okay I’ll run some in this constituency, you’ll run some in that constituency.  So there are a lot of scenarios that can play out, so it’s hard to really predict, except to say [that] if the U.D.P. does not unite before the election then the chances of a thirty-one sweep is going to be much higher.”