United Democratic Party Chair maintains party is united; says review process was fair and not biased

By Aaron Humes: Chairman of the United Democratic Party, Senator Michael Peyrefitte, has defended his handling of the recall petition review process that culminated in a rejection of the petition earlier today.

Ultimately, he told reporters earlier today, the pro-recall side just did not have the votes to trigger the process after review: “You had enough disqualifications and retractions before the document was even submitted by the people who were calling for the recall. Before the document was taken in to the headquarters last week Friday, you already had retractions coming in. So it’s not even a matter [of] quarreling about whether or not you can put your signature and take it back. In essence, before it became even a live issue, you had people who were already retracting their signatures…”

He added that as chairman he had to remain objective and so, to what he calls the “chagrin” of both sides, he cannot take sides and neither can the party secretariat headed by Juliet Thimbriel.

Of Thimbriel and himself, Peyrefitte said, “… we’re not going to take any side over anybody or something else for the sake of some bias when it comes to the type of attention that is being paid to this matter. We meticulously went over everything to make sure that if the threshold was met, then the recall convention would be triggered. If it wasn’t met then it would not be triggered. What you have there was the result of an objective process that took us over the weekend, countless hours and time, thanks to the secretariat and the people who made sure that everything was in place and that’s what we do. We’re not for the recall, we’re not against the recall. We are for the UDP and we want to make sure that the process is followed and the constitution is respected.”

Some 201 signatures from delegates of the Party were presented signifying support, but 43 are now confirmed to have walked back their assent.

According to Peyrefitte in speaking with reporters on Monday in Belmopan, nothing in the Party Constitution says persons cannot withdraw their support once the petition is presented, but there is nothing not to say they can and he had no evidence at that time – and still doesn’t – of any bribery or coercion to sign or withdraw their support, but he allows that people are allowed to change their minds.

As for party unity, Peyrefitte was asked on Monday how should the Belizean people be feeling about the UDP with this leadership musical chairs continuing to go on? In reply, he drew a comparison to the “Year of Three Prime Ministers” – so far – ongoing in the United Kingdom and its Conservative Party government: “I mean big bad England, right? Our motherland, so to speak. Not even them get their act together and they are in government. So nobody can sneeze on us. This is democracy and as I was saying to the youth parliamentarians this morning, democracy is messy and it’s the worse form of government ever, except for the other ones that exist.”

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