P.U.P. Leader Says Arthur Saldivar Has Not Won Anything
Arthur Saldivar
The P.U.P.’s Vetting Committee has accepted Arthur Saldivar’s application to contest the party’s Belmopan Standard Bearer convention. Whether his application will be approved is another matter. The P.U.P. decided to further postpone the convention to the end of August in light of Saldivar’s application for an injunction to stop the convention in order for the court to hear his substantial claim. He is suing his own party and asking the court to order the P.U.P. to pay him close to two hundred and ninety thousand dollars—the amount of monies he said he spent while campaigning. Like the party’s chairman, P.U.P. Leader John Briceño says that Saldivar’s claim is frivolous. However, he added that Saldivar will be given a fair chance.
John Briceño
John Briceño, P.U.P. Leader
“I disagree vociferously that Arthur Saldivar has not won anything. What we are doing at this time is correcting a proceeding that was done in 2014 when he was suspended from the party because of certain allegations and actions that he had taken. And because of that suspension we could not have accept his application back then. And now he was taking us to court to say that the proper procedure was not followed. We have every confidence and when we go to court, we are going to win that. We have open applications once more. I am told that Arthur Saldivar has applied and we will follow the process. His application has been accepted and now the Vetting Committee is going to look his application just like the other applications. They are going to interview them. They will make a recommendation to the executive and then at that point the party will make a decision. So Arthur Saldivar did not win anything. All we did is to instead of having the court decide when we can hold our convention, we decided to change the date to give anybody an opportunity if they want to apply or not.”
Hipolito Novelo
“Sir could all of this mini political saga have been avoided if the Vetting Committee would have simply accepted his application because as the Chairman said in the last press conference it’s like the suspension did not happen?
John Briceño
“Not necessarily because the Vetting Committee was doing their job. As far as we were concern, Arthur Saldivar was suspended from the party. So the first thing that Arthur needed to have done is to apply to lift the suspension. He did not do that so the Vetting Committee did the right thing. We cannot accept his application because you were suspended. I do not agree with that.”
Hipolito Novelo
“Is he still claiming the two hundred thousand dollars that he said he spent during the campaign?”
John Briceño
“This is the same very man that went to the court that said that he cannot pay the Coye Family three hundred thousand or whatever that he supposedly owes them and said that he can only pay them a thousand dollars a month. And now he is telling us that he spent about two hundred and ninety thousand dollars, please, Arthur can do better than that.”
The P.U.P. has accepted the applications of Oscar Mira, Pat Weizman, and Michelle Rodriguez. There is no word whether Patrick Andrews, whose application was also denied, will reapply. The deadline for application is July thirteen.
