Punta Gorda councillor switches from blue to red
It will not go down in history as one of the U.D.P.’s most dramatic press conferences… but as the atmosphere heats up in advance of the March first nationwide municipal elections, the rules of engagement read no holds barred. Today’s affair at the Radisson featured the defection of Punta Gorda’s deputy mayor, Darlene Parham, from the ranks of the ruling P.U.P. into the waiting arms of the Opposition. With her freshly minted U.D.P. party card firmly in hand, Parham told the press that her political makeover is in response to a lack of financial transparency on the part of P.G.’s mayor.
Darlene Parham, Switched from P.U.P. to U.D.P.
“I don’t have any evidence at hand, but first of all, being the Deputy Mayor of Punta Gorda town, I should be a signatory to cheques at the bank, my name should be at the bank. He refuses to put my name at the bank. I have asked him on numerous occasions to look at the cheques. He would not even let me see a cheque, much less sign a cheque. You know, what is he hiding? I have said to him a number of times, what are you hiding, if you don’t want me to see cheque or even sign a cheque? I need to know who are these cheques going to, what is the amount of money, why are these cheques being written?”
Dean Barrow, Party Leader, U.D.P.
“They can remove her as Deputy Mayor, and as Darlene has said, she will have no problem with that so long as it is properly done. The difficulty of course is that apart from the fact that one councillor is dead, two others are in the states?live in the states, and as she told you a fourth works in Mango Creek. So the dynamics of trying to put together and pass a resolution to remove her will not be as easy as perhaps the Mayor and the leadership of the People’s United Party would like.”
Parham says that she will offer herself as a U.D.P. mayoral candidate at Punta Gorda’s municipal convention in November. Mayor Carlos Galvez responded that Parham’s move was motivated by political ambition to become mayor at any cost.
