Stalwart party hopefuls compete for deputy

Patrick Faber

The leadership of the United Democratic Party will be realigned in the next forty-eight hours. At the Andres Campos Civic Center in Corozal Town on Sunday, the party will hold an election for the next Party Chairman and Deputy Party Leader. The incumbent Chairman is Minister of Education, Patrick Faber; he is vacating that post in hopes of unseating Deputy Party Leader Gaspar Vega.  It’s not an open convention and only delegates will vote.  There are five hundred and sixty-seven delegates on the list comprising of fifteen delegates from each of the thirty-one constituencies along with other officials within the party. On Monday we will have detail report on the convention, but today, News Five attempted to reach both Vega and Faber on their last minute campaigning. There was no response from Vega, but Faber responded to our request for an interview. He believes that following his travel across the country, he has the upper hand leading into Sunday’s convention.

Jose Sanchez

“What’s your perspective on going into Sunday? What kind of numbers do you see you and your other fellow candidate receiving?”

Patrick Faber, Contender, U.D.P. Deputy Party Leader

“I think the magic number is somewhere around two hundred and eighty-five or so—I have not really done the exact math. But in our camp, we are looking at a win or at least three hundred and twenty votes and I am not going to fool everybody, I think this is going to be a tight race. But at the end of the day, we will win by I’d say about forty to fifty votes over Mister Vega.”

Jose Sanchez

“You’ve had some prominent members of the party support you. Who are they?”

Patrick Faber

“The two former party leaders of the party certainly came out publicly to endorse me at a banquet that I had last December. Those are of course, the Honorable Dean Lindo and the Right Honorable Sir Manuel Esquivel. And whilst some of my colleagues are in support, they have not done so publicly—they have not given their support publicly for obvious reasons. But some of my colleagues who have come out out-rightly and have supported me are of course the party whip, Honorable Michael Finnegan. I’ll leave it at that to not get anybody else in trouble.”

Jose Sanchez

“And depending on the outcome, if you win, you are the next deputy party leader. If you lose, what rank would you hold or not hold within the party?”

Patrick Faber

“I wouldn’t hold a rank in terms of having an official post in the party, but of course I still continue to be a member of the national party council. I will still be a minster in the cabinet as long as the Prime Minister will have me. I believe my record of service to this party and also to the people of this nation through my service as a minister of government has been a very good record and a better record than Mister Vega’s record. And for the sake of that and of course for the sake of the future of our party, I make a particular appeal to the delegates of our party who are young people—and a good majority of them are out of that five hundred and sixty-seven—for us to have continuity in this party. The success started of course by Mister Barrow in this term of government and we’d want to move on from strength to strength and keep this party in the government and in a winning position.  And if we are at all serious about that, we will look to the youth of the party, which in this race is me.”

Whatever the outcome of the elections, Faber will no longer hold the post of chairman. We’ll have to wait until Sunday for those results, but on our online poll, Faber is way ahead of Vega. At last count this evening, one thousand five hundred and twenty-seven persons believed that Faber will win, while five hundred and sixty-six persons polled in favor of Vega. That is a four to one ratio in support for Faber.