What Lies Ahead for the Alliance for Democracy’s Unity Convention?

The Alliance for Democracy is gearing up for a significant unity convention on October 20th, extending an invitation to all United Democratic Party (U.D.P.) delegates to join the event at Birds’ Isle. However, the U.D.P. leadership is pushing back with a counter-campaign, asserting that any decisions made by the Alliance are invalid, as the group and its members are no longer recognized as part of the party.  What implications does this have for the Alliance’s future? We posed this question to Patrick Faber earlier this evening to gain his insights.

 

Isani Cayetano

“So, you’re eighteen days away from this Unity Convention.  What are we looking at simply because while you guys may be mustering the support ahead of that particular event, there is a counter campaign being run, if I could describe it as such, where this pending activity is being written off as fake and holds no water in the UDP.”

 

Patrick Faber, Area Representative, Collet

“Well, I don’t see how it can be fake, and it can be tested very simply.  You look at the constitution says, and you look at what we are doing.  We have made every attempt to follow what the constitution says about these matters and if you look at their argument, you can see right through them that they do not follow the constitution.  For instance, the constitution says that a third of the national convention membership can sign a petition to trigger a national convention.  That was done.  Two hundred and thirty-two delegates of the national convention signed a petition, that was dismissed by the chairman.  The chairman has no authority.  If somebody can find it in the constitution and show me where the chairman is allowed to reject a petition from the national convention, a right that is given to it by the constitution, then I’ll say we’re wrong. No leader, no chairman, no vice chairman, no central executive, no national party council, not even the national convention itself can supersede the constitution of the party.  Why the convention is because that is the entity that can change the constitution if it feels the need to do so, as we did in March 2016.”