Shyne Opens Up About Convention Outcome
Sunday’s recall convention saw Collet Area Representative Patrick Faber retaining his seat as leader of the United Democratic Party. Despite surviving the recent attempt to have him ousted, Faber’s control of the U.D.P. is not absolute. He is compelled to share the reins with Opposition Leader Shyne Barrow who is the official head of the party in parliament. Both politicians share an antagonistic relationship and are tasked with having to work with each other as they try to steer the party through turbulent headwinds. With the convention in their collective rearview, are Faber and Barrow prepared to move forward in unison or is there still animosity between the two leaders? This afternoon, Barrow sat down with News Five to answer a few questions.
Shyne Barrow, Leader of the Opposition
“We didn’t really move on, it would have been better if Mr. Faber was recalled or he at least got the majority of the votes, then that would have been definitive. But to come, not even to have forty-seven percent of the people vote to keep you and fifty-four percent of the delegates answered the question, because the question on the ballot was, “Do you want the honorable Patrick Faber to remain as leader of the U.D.P.? And if fifty percent or fifty-four percent of the people, of the delegates, said no, that is problematic. So we haven’t progressed, we haven’t moved forward. So the idea that oh, you only needed one-third and we needed two-thirds, the numbers still don’t lie. So certainly it would have been better for all of us had it gone convincingly one way or another, but the argument is being made and I join with that argument that fifty-four percent is significant.”
Shyne Barrow
Isani Cayetano
“You guys have had somewhat of a contentious relationship, you don’t really see eye-to-eye on a great many things. How do you plan on working together to bring the U.D.P. forward as a viable option, as the opposition party?”
Shyne Barrow
“It is very difficult to do that when the party leader is on TV saying publicly that the twenty-six standard bearers that lost are nobodies. It is very difficult to that when he is saying that, you know, he is criticizing me for being unstable and erratic and all over the place. For the last eight months, we have not had any NPC and that is one of the reasons he was removed as Leader of the Opposition because he was behaving in an autocratic, dictatorial fashion and we couldn’t go to the wider party because he said, this one doesn’t have standing, that one isn’t properly constituted. So he suspended the constitution, in essence. He suspended the activities of the highest authority in the U.D.P.”
