PM Barrow Says Interim Convention for U.D.P. Set for March

Dean Barrow

The People’s United Party will elect a new leader at the end of January. Close to three thousand delegates will vote at the Belmopan convention to determine where Francis Fonseca keeps the job or whether John Briceño or Cordel Hyde will be leading the opposition party. The campaign is in full swing with the three have been crisscrossing the country meeting delegates. That’s on the P.U.P. side, but as it relates to the governing party, the U.D.P. will also have a change in leadership.  That’s not going to happen in the near future but the current holder will be retiring before the current term of office expires. Last Friday in Guatemala City, we sat with the Prime Minister for an interview that covered a wide range of issues. In part two of that interview, Barrow spoke of his timeline to give way to new leadership.

Prime Minister Dean Barrow

“We’re having a convention next month which is not the convention; it’s sort of an interim convention. We are going to try to get a dispensation from that national convention in March, which is the supreme organ of the party, so that we do not have to hold another convention in two years time. We will ask and fully expect it to be done that the date for the next national convention be fixed not the exact date but by January 2020 so that by the end of January 2020, I mean this is a miles ahead, but it’s just as well to get it all sorted out. There will be a convention to elect a new leader of the U.D.P.  I want to go by January so that whoever emerges as the leader can become prime minister and have the nine months or so to in fact read the 2020 budget and prepare the party for general elections at the end of that year. I can tell you while it’s a long way away, already we have a sense of who the aspirants and their exploratory campaign has already started and so it’ll be some interesting time ahead.”