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Faber Wins Small Victory At UDP NPC
posted (April 11, 2016)
The UDP held a National Party Council meeting on Saturday - where the time and place for the much-anticipated first deputy convention was set. It will be held on May 29th at the ITVET, but that that's only half the story coming out of Saturday's meeting.

The bigger, more consequential outcome has to do with the delegates list. Those are the 600 or so UDP supporters who will vote for the First Deputy. Ultimately that small group will determine who will take up the number 2 spot in the UDP. It should be straightforward enough, but reports suggest that John Saldivar wanted a new delegates list for the Deputy Leaders convention, while Patrick Faber wanted to stay with the existing list. It went to a vote on Saturday and Faber's supporters won that vote by a comfortable margin of 63 to 51. Faber told the media on Saturday that the outcome favors him:..

Reporter
"We are getting sources that that puts you at a great advantage with keeping this delegate list. Do you feel that way?"

Hon. Patrick Faber, Running for UDP 1st DPL
"Well from the campaigning so far I do believe so and I think that my colleagues who were supporting John really were feeling the pinch. They understood clearly that those delegates in fact were leaning towards me - many of their constituencies and so what really was afoot was a move to try to remove those delegates, so that they don't get to support me. But you remember that these were the same delegates who went to Dangriga on March 20th and in fact put in place the highest offices of the party. Those delegates were in fact then were registered for a period of time and you can't just change them 3 weeks later and the NPC in its wisdom today supported that."

And while Faber is confident in the delegates, what about the standard bearers and the representatives. John Saldivar has been profiling with them on his ads - and he looked muscular when he profiled with the entire Western Caucus. In tonight's news you've seen him with two female representatives and one standard bearers. Faber conceded that Saldivar may have the profile but he has the numbers.

Hon. Patrick Faber, Running for UDP 1st DPL
"My colleagues and opponent was basically putting out these endorsement from like he put out the entire Cayo Caucus. Well, the Cayo Caucus in only 5 votes out of the 590 votes and there are people in the constituencies, the delegations were saying 'we want ride with Faber' and those people get to stay. So I am very confident of a win. I think that we will be able to win quite comfortably and I asked people to support us because my agenda is not so much to become deputy prime minister. My agenda is to become deputy leader of this party so that we can organize it such a way that we can continue the legacy of the Rt. Hon. Part Leader now, Dean Barrow and we can go on to continue to make history to win a fourth consecutive election victory. Give him 16 and give me 15. But you see there are those who commit to him who as I've indicated their delegates are not with them. When I tell you I have 15, I have those committees with the delegates locked-in."

Reporter
"Your opponent has put out a picture showing the 3 top ranking women in the UDP behind him as if he has their support. What do you have to say about that?"

Hon. Patrick Faber, Running for UDP 1st DPL
"Well I don't know if they are the 3 top ranking women. The director of the party's women affairs Ms. Diane Haylock is a member of the central executive and a voter in the convention. Nobody can dispute my mother in politics, the first woman to ever have been elected in the United Democratic Party, the Hon. Faith Stewart Babb, she is squarely on my side. You saw in fact at my launches that there are some very powerful women present. We saw Guadalupe Magana Dyck who is one of our candidates, standard bearer in the Orange Walk South constituency. In fact I've spoken to Freetown already which is Carla Barnett's division and I a telling you, the majority of people in Freetown indicated to me that they are riding with Faber despite the fact that Carla Barnett is supporting John. That is a fact."

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