National Party Council Meets; Goodbye Patrick Faber

Patrick Faber

The National Party Council met virtually on Saturday in a marathon session to discuss the way forward for the U.D.P., amid what appeared to be a leadership crisis. On Friday, the chairman of the United Democratic Party received a letter from Collet Area Representative Patrick Faber in which several concerns were raised regarding the direction of the political organization.  Among those issues was the fact that Faber never tendered a physical letter of resignation on the date that his notice ought to have come into effect.  January thirty-first came and went without a letter being sent to party chairman Mike Peyrefitte or to Governor General Froyla Tzalam.  While Shyne Barrow replaced Faber as Leader of the Opposition last Tuesday during a brief ceremony, the N.P.C. had to meet in emergency session over the weekend to determine a course of action.  That meant invoking a fairly recent piece of legislation that would legitimize Faber’s televised notice of resignation.

Mike Peyrefitte

Mike Peyrefitte, Chairman, U.D.P.

“It is Act No. 25 of 2021, I think, it was an electronics act that came out that says if you want to do something you don’t have to put it in what we would now term the old-fashioned wet ink signature, ink on paper type of thing. The new rules and the new way of the world has made it available for you to make pronouncements and say certain things without necessarily actually putting it in writing. So the honorable Patrick Faber was a member of the house, is a member of the house and was certainly a member of the house when that act was passed. I was a member of the senate when that act was passed and it was signed by Governor General Tzalam so it’s a fairly recent act. So I have to believe that when he made the pronouncements publicly, to the world, that he would be doing that on January thirty-first, I have to believe that he knew that that would be effective even though a physical letter was not actually sent to myself or the secretariat.  Indeed, the N.P.C. accepted his resignation and we decided to move on and set new dates for a new leader of the party to be voted in.”