On Tuesday November 27, Cabinet announced that Prime Minister Dean Barrow will be staying in office until 2020. The PM had previously announced that it was likely that he would demit office before the next General Elections to give his successor an opportunity to, as Prime Minister, marshal the UDP into the next elections.
Tuesday’s announcement changed that decision and in its release Cabinet noted that,
“Ministers expressed great satisfaction at the evidence of support for the UDP, as measured by the large voter turnout at the UDP contested standard bearer conventions taking place every weekend since November 4th.”
As The Guardian has been reporting the conventions have attracted large turnouts and with that in mind Cabinet felt that there should be a break in the convention schedule for this year. The last one scheduled for this year is that of Orange Walk North to be held on December 16th. According to Cabinet, the break will “allow for healing and an organizational reset to take place at the individual constituency level.” Shortly thereafter, the contested conventions for delegates are expected to begin. It was envisioned that these would have been immediately followed by the leadership convention but this is now changed.
There will now be a recommendation to the UDP National Party Council to revise the schedule for it to fall in line with the Party’s Constitution. So the next UDP leadership convention cannot occur before January of 2020. This will also push back the delegates conventions.
The release concludes that: “Cabinet points out that the notion of having the leadership convention before the time prescribed by the Party’s Constitution was precipitated by Prime Minister Rt. Hon. Dean Barrow’s declaration, to Cabinet and publicly, of his wish to retire before the end of the term mandated both by the UDP’s and the country’s Constitutions. But in light of what Cabinet sees as the exigencies of the situation, the Prime Minister has, on the urging of his Cabinet, agreed to stay on.”
Cabinet makes clear that this position is supported by all Ministers, including those not present at the meeting today but who had previously indicated their agreement.”
