Mayor’s political fate to be discussed at U.D.P. council

The public fight between Mayor Zenaida Moya Flowers and Prime Minister Dean Barrow will go before the U.D.P. Party Council this Saturday morning. Early reports are that the PM is seething and is prepared to watch her burn over the remarks directed to at him following her court appearance on Thursday. So what happens next for her? Well, sources close to the Mayor say that a move is afoot to rope her in and that her expulsion from the party is on the table. The mayor is on record saying that nothing has changed, that she is still a U.D.P. And by all accounts no one can force her to leave City Hall. She would only have to give up office if she is convicted and sent to prison for the criminal charges of uttering a false document or violations to the City Council Regulations Act. Until that happens and if that happens, she can’t be suspended. The thing is that she is technically on maternity leave and by law she is required to take that leave. The U.D.P. is divided over this issue but the Mayor has said she is elected and has the support of the rank and file. Today she was back at the Council. The caucus meeting scheduled to deal with a debt to the Belize Maintenance Limited never happened. But what we’ve been able to find out from sources at City Hall is that though the deputy mayor is running city hall, the embattled Mayor was individually calling councilors into her office and several left the building. The council wrote a release on Wednesday indicating that they were in full support of the Prime Minister’s decision to amend the law that placed a financial controller at city hall. She can for sure only count on the support of one councilor, Wayne Usher. This afternoon, we caught up with Deputy Mayor Dion Leslie and we asked him about the mood of the Councilors.

Jose Sanchez
“The other crisis of City Hall is regarding the mayor and her charges. I know the council was supposed to have a caucus meeting today to discuss the management. What was the result of that caucus meeting?”

Dion Leslie, Deputy Mayor, Belize City
“Like I mentioned before the meeting was postponed due to the fact that we have a national party council meeting tomorrow. After that then we will try to meet again on Monday and go forward from there. No further comment as of now until Monday when we’ll see where we stand and we can talk some more.”