7 News Belize

Historic First: PM Calls On Penner To Resign And Face Recall
posted (October 15, 2013)
When we left you on Friday - the UDP were rolling out to Cayo Northeast to defend Elvin Penner and his seat, but tonight, the political landscape has changed completely. It is like night and day: today the Prime Minister said Penner's actions are indefensible and is calling for him to resign as standard bearer so that a new candidate can be elected in a bye-election.

It is a historic first in Belizean politics and an incredibly risky maneuver for the UDP, which only has a slender two seat majority in the house, but Barrow says new evidence forced his hand.

That evidence was unearthed by the Immigration Minister, the Director of Immigration and the CEO this weekend who reviewed files amassed since April - when Penner was first given authority to sign nationality certificates. Barrow told the media at a hastily called press conference at the NEMO Conference Room in Belmopan that the new information shows that Penner has to go, from the house of representatives and from the UDP.

He interrupted Cabinet to hold the press conference - with all his ministers in two - and after he had called Penner in Guatemala to give him the news:

Prime Minister Dean Barrow
"More evidence has surfaced of the involvement of Elvin Penner in other instances of what to us is impropriety. The material presented to Cabinet was and is enough for us to feel that Elvin Penner was involved in additional instances of what I will term "irregularities." We can in the circumstances no longer continue to support Elvin Penner, meaning; that in our view he cannot any longer continue to represent the people of the Cayo Northeast constituency as and in the name of the United Democratic Party."

"The discovery now of the other instances means that we would have to be more merciful that great God in the sky if we did not think that this now puts paid to any questions of a second chance for Penner under the egis of the United Democratic Party"

"We hereby invite Hon. Penner to resign his seat, to resign in fact from the United Democratic Party. We cannot expel Penner from the House of Representatives. If Hon. Penner heeds our request that he resign from the House or that he resign from the UDP which would produce the same result, then the procedures are set in motion for him to vacate the seat and for a bi-election to take place."

"If Hon. Penner refuses to resign from the UDP or from the House, I am afraid there is not a thing that any of us can do to oust him from that seat. If Hon. Penner refuses to resign and that petition is successful, meaning that the requisite number of signatures is collected and that the chief elections officer verifies those signatures then there would be this recall referendum which provides this alternative route of causing Penner to lose his seat."

"We believe that it would be far neater, far less messy for Penner to do what we believe is the right thing by his party and by his people and in fact heed the call to resign."

Prime Minister Dean Barrow
"We go forward and we seek to retain this seat whether it is by way of a recall, referendum, or whether it is by way of a bi-election. We are prepared for it. In fact I even say it in Spanish "Con o sin Penner. El UDP va seguir, el UDP va continuar, el UDP vas ganar."

So what is the incriminating new evidence and what is the extent of it? Well Immigration Minister Hulse would not discuss the extent of it - since it is the subject of ongoing investigations. But he did say that it has to do with missing files - of which they found a few traces still in the system:

Hon. Godwin Hulse, Minister of Immigration
"Even though now there are files that we cannot locate we are able to retrieve enough documentation to be able to establish a paper trail. As Hon. Prime Minister said that may not be sufficient for the authorities to seek any conviction. I think he laid that out very well, but it was sufficient for me to sensitize the Prime Minister and the Cabinet of this situation."

Prime Minister Dean Barrow
"The Immigration Department has a system by which as a kind of backup, documents are scanned. The Minister produces to me some of the scanned documents. That's perfectly enough for me to come to a conclusion. That's perfectly enough for me to determine that on the facts as disclose by those scanned documents somebody is guilty of wrong doing."

Hon. Godwin Hulse, Minister of Immigration
"What I can properly say at this time, we continue with this investigation. It's a large amount of files we have to look at very carefully to be absolutely sure that we don't disenfranchise those persons who rightfully, righteously obtained their nationality certificates and their passports but select or deselect those who didn't do so, or who were facilitated in not doing so."

"We intend to see this process through. That we want to say and we intend also to make the administrative changes within the department so that we bring an end to what I will call a long, long, long history of wrong doing in the Department of Immigration."

"I want to reiterate there are good persons in that department who have cooperated with us. There is a lot of friction in the department, let's not fool ourselves. There are a lot of things that are happening in there and this is why those who are out there suggesting that files are all over the place - there are a lot of things that are happening in there and people are trying to protect themselves and protect their backs and protect their friends and those who they need to protect, that's a fact. We are fighting against that wave of resistance, but I can assure the Belizean public that battle we will win."

And while Hulse is determined to clean up the Immigration Department, politically, it's not that simple. That's because Penner - who is in Guatemala receiving medical attention - must choose to vacate his seat. And while the PUP is working on a recall petition at what appears to be a less than furious pace - now they have the implicit support of the UDP, but Barrow says that support cannot be explicit:..

Prime Minister Dean Barrow
"With respect to the recall mechanism - we're not going to go out there and ask people to sign the recall petition. Her majesty's loyal opposition has undertaken that assignment and we will give them ample opportunity to complete their assignment. We will certainly I believe take down the banners that say "don't sign the recall petition" and we will not have people on the streets in Cayo Northeast telling the voters not to sign the recall petition, let that process work and let the chips fall where they may."

"Penner has reach the end of the road with the United Democratic Party. While we have taken a decision that's entirely within authority in Cabinet, I don't believe we want to preempt the larger party. I would give you my personal position and I suspect that would also be the position of my colleagues - we are not going to go out there and slaughter Penner, we are not going to do it, but to ask us to actually join some sort of a street campaign against a former colleague we believe is asking us to go too far."

And while the reversal in the Prime Minister and Party Leader's position between last week and this week may give you whiplash, the PM said today that in fact he never defended Penner - and now that there are more revelations, he most certainly will not protect him:

Prime Minister Dean Barrow
"I don't know that I ever defended Penner, I moved immediately the evidence was brought to me to fire him and with respect to the recall petition; I made clear that I thought that in the circumstances as it then stood he was entitle to try to vindicate his right to resist the petition with the evidence. We still want to maintain our majority. We would prefer of there were to be no bi-election. A bi-election is a no win proposition for us in this sense - we already hold the seat. All we can do in a bi-election is to retain it. We can't gain an additional seat and of course there is always the possibility that we could lose the seat. We don't think so and based on my tour this weekend in Cayo Northeast. We have every confidence that we can win a bi-election. The point is that we are prepared to put it all on the line. We are prepared to contemplate the possibility of being one more seat down if that is what is required for us to do the right thing."

And of course, the perverse interpretation of a lot of the Penner protecting that we saw last week is that the Cayo northeast representative knows where the bodies are buried, so to speak. As an aggressive actor in the immigration department, Penner - it has been speculated - certainly should have known about the issuance of visa's to suspect persons which caused the Prime Minister so much agony. And, it is felt, that if the UDP didn't stand behind Penner, he may have blown a very loud whistle on widespread irregularities in the department, including what we have heard is a visa quota system assigned to ministers with Cabinet's blessing. But today, the Prime Minister completely rejected that interpretation:..

Prime Minister Dean Barrow
"The evidence that the Minister has uncovered shows no not even the slightest indication of any other minister being involved in any kind of passport scheme such as is suggested Penner may have been involved in. If we were as you put it trying to protect Penner and I say again for the record I reject that phraseology in order to safeguard other ministers - why would we stop now? How on earth would you have gotten to know of what it is that Minister Hulse and two of his most senior, most trusted officials have now discovered."

Home | Archives | Downloads/Podcasts | Advertise | Contact Us

7 News Belize