Mayor Moya Flowers’ expulsion reduced to suspension

zenaida moya flowers

The U.D.P. pulled a fast one on Mayor Zenaida Moya Flowers. We reported last week that the party would meet to decide whether or not the mayor’s expulsion would be rescinded. Well, that meeting did take place on Saturday and Moya Flowers is still out in the cold. That’s because it was agreed that the expulsion would be replaced by a one year suspension retroactive to the day she was kicked out in May 2010. The Mayor has already indicated she wants to throw her hat in the ring for the Albert constituency where two other U.D.P. aspirants have put their name forward. But here is what, by the time she is reinstated, the Albert convention will have already taken place which all means that the suspension was a Machiavellian move designed to box her out of electoral office.  Three weeks ago Minister Michael Finnegan reportedly told Cabinet that he will not be seeking office in the 2013 general elections and that he was endorsing Moya Flowers’ candidacy. The Mesopotamia is considered the safest U.D.P. seat, which Finnegan has handsomely won by huge margins in consecutive elections and where Moya Flowers would have piggy backed on the U.D.P. stronghold. Finnegan told Cabinet that he had already promised her the seat, but his colleagues prevailed on him to stay in the race. Beyond that, as we understand it, even the U.D.P. convention for Mayor has been scheduled before the suspension would end. So where exactly does this put the mayor’s political future? Exactly where she is today; still out of her beloved party without a constituency and worst yet, with the Mayorship slipping out of her hand. With bad blood already flowing between her and the Prime Minister, many believe that her public support for Mayor Hilberto Campos of Corozal Town at the last convention, did not gain her points from the U.D.P. big wigs.  We did call on Finnegan to comment on the story, but apparently he did not get the memo that the censorship on this station had been lifted and he did not wish to speak.