“May the Best Candidate Win” – Dean Barrow on U.D.P. Convention

It’s official, Shyne Barrow and Tracy Panton will face each other for leadership of the United Democratic Party on March twenty-seventh. Both candidates have submitted letters to the Chairman of the United Democratic Party expressing their desire to run for the office of party leader. The Leader of the Opposition is presently out of the country on what he describes as an official visit to the United States. Upon his return, it is expected that Barrow will actively campaign against the Albert Area Representative for the vacant seat. For delegates, it will be the second time in a year that they will be going to the polls, on the heels of a similar scandal involving former party leader Patrick Faber. The entire fiasco is a disappointment for stalwarts of the once powerful political organization, including former Prime Minister Dean Barrow.

Dean Barrow

Dean Barrow, Former Prime Minister

“Of course, like all persons of good will who feel for democracy, who feel not just for the U.D.P. but for our country, I greatly regret all the turmoil that we’ve witnessed in the U.D.P., the upheavals that’s been a recurring theme and that came to a head with the events of the last couple of weeks. I hope though that now there will be some kind of cleansing, some kind of catharsis and that the party can move forward, can conduct the convention for a successor to the now departed leader in as amicable a fashion as possible.  Perhaps I ought to rephrase that, no contested convention will ever be amicable, be amiable, but I hope the convention will be as free from rancor and personalism as is possible in this imperfect world and in this imperfect game or enterprise called politics.  I sincerely wish that.  I think that the party needs to heal. I think the country and democracy both need for the U.D.P. to heal and so I fervently and sincerely wish that we can get over this convention, choose a new leader with minimum animosity, with minimum name calling and finger pointing and that at the end of that convention whoever emerges as leader will be able to unite the party.  Whichever of the two candidates loses will be able to say and mean and demonstrate a willingness to support the winner and to come together so that the United Democratic Party can return to its ideals, return to its roots and move forward in a manner that will convince people that it has gotten its act together, that it is a worthy opponent to the ruling party and that indeed it deserves to once again become the government of this country.”