UDP Elects New Leadership Team

The United Democratic Party has officially elected a new leadership team today. The Albert Area Representative and Leader of the Opposition, Tracy Panton, cemented her role in the UDP after being endorsed as the party’s first female party leader and officially the first woman to lead a mass party in Belize.

Hugo Patt was endorsed as First Deputy Party Leader and Miguel Guerra as Second Deputy.

The most anticipated contest was for Party Chairman, with Roosevelt Blades, Sheena Pitts, and John Saldivar vying for the role. After a tense vote, Pitts secured the post. She is now the first chairwoman for a mass party and also one of UDP’s senators.

The race for Vice Chairman also concluded with John Castillo winning the two-way contest between him and Ivan Williams.

The transition in leadership marked the end of Moses “Shyne” Barrow’s leadership as party leader. In his farewell speech, Barrow said, “As I engage in the peaceful, united transfer of leadership to my successor, the honourable Tracy Panton, I pray that the creator impart her with the wisdom and the knowledge, understanding, and political will to execute effective strategies in the rebuilding processes of our United Democratic Party.”

Meanwhile, Panton said today’s endorsement is the result of years of groundwork. “It has been a long journey,” she told reporters. “My first task is uniting this party across the north, west, south, and central regions… The work is now only beginning.”

The convention unfolded after a year of internal tension chronically fracturing the party and a leaked WhatsApp exchange between delegates just hours ahead of the convention. The intense exchange immediately raised concerns whether the party would once more collapse in yet another attempt to “unify”.

Panton now takes the helm of a newly installed UDP executive and sets the party on a renewed political trajectory.