CARICOM Leaders Converge on Montego Bay for Annual Heads of Government Meeting
The thirty-ninth CARICOM Heads of Government Meeting got underway this evening in Montego Bay, Jamaica and continues through to Friday. Belize is represented at the summit of regional leaders by Prime Minister Dean Barrow, who for some reason did not make it when he was called to take his place. Foreign Minister Wilfred Elrington, who also represents the Pickstock Division and has been a fixture at these diplomatic events, was unusually absent. Elrington is taking a back seat, on the instruction of the prime minister, to focus on his constituency. Elrington’s domestic responsibilities include ensuring that a majority of his constituents who are eligible to vote are re-registered and that he is able to deliver Pickstock for the United Democratic Party come 2020.
Wilfred ‘Sedi’ Elrington
Wilfred ‘Sedi’ Elrington, U.D.P. Area Representative, Pickstock
“The last Cabinet meeting which we attended the prime minister pointedly made the comment that I cannot conduct political activity from being abroad. The work of the politician is to be on the ground with the constituents. Whereas I can conduct foreign affairs by being abroad, I can’t conduct domestic political affairs by being abroad. So the more time I can spend at home the better it is for me as a politician and I am foremost a politician. So I am taking every single opportunity to be at home, especially given the signal importance of this re-registration process, with the upcoming referendum issue and of course the general elections. So I have got to make sure that I take care of my backyard and I’ve got to make sure that I bring in this seat for the party, and as for the party nothing is more important. So I am not absolutely needed in Jamaica, the C.E.O. has gone, the prime minister is there. He doesn’t need anybody else to be really there. But I need to be here to coordinate the re-registration process and to make sure that we continue to win in the Pickstock Division as we have been doing for the last three consecutive terms.”
We note that Elrington, like his cross-town colleague Anthony ‘Boots’ Martinez, failed to deliver his constituency in the March seventh municipal elections.
