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Sixteen Shoulder To Shoulder With Saldivar
posted (April 12, 2016)
The UDP special convention for First Deputy Leader isn't happening until the last weekend in May, and even though John Saldivar and Patrick Faber are only fighting for the votes of about 300 delegates or so - judging by the war in mainstream and social media, you'd think this was a general election! John Saldivar today posted another major endorsement lineup on his Facebook page. 16 of the party's 31 standard bearers and representatives are seen supporting him, posted under the caption "maximum unity." The post says the picture was taken today in Belmopan and we note that it includes Gaspar Vega - the outgoing first Deputy who has been reluctant to show his hand in any party matters since he abruptly resigned two months ago. Notably Saldivar has 13 of the party's 19 elected representatives in his camp.

But, according to the UDP's party whip, Michael Finnegan all those political stripes don't count for much more than 16 votes in a delegates race, where even he can't whip all his delegates into a single line:..

Hon. Michael Finnegan, Area Rep., Mesopotamia
"If a candidate is supporting you, that is good for you. But is not where it stops. The delegates are what important. So I can be supporting Faber, but can I get my whole 15 delegates to support Faber? Most likely not. So how many candidates are behind you and how much representatives you got behind you - that is nada, nada. It doesn't mean anything. What is important are the delegates and you have got to visit the delegates and talk to the delegates. Because if I am supporting a particular candidate, it doesn't mean that all the 15 delegates from Mesopotamia who will vote at the convention will vote for Faber. I will try my best of course to have all of them vote for Faber, but those delegates must be free to vote for whosoever they want and the representative must not muscle them. I will repeat and it is very important for your newscast, the representative must not muscle the delegates coming from their division."

Each UDP constituency has 15 delegates, plus the representative or standard bearer - bringing it to a total of 16 delegates per division.

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