UDP Internal Riff Heats Up Ahead of Scheduled NPC  

The United Democratic Party is facing more internal drama as Interim Leader Hugo Patt clashes with Acting Chairman Alberto August over a key party meeting set for this Saturday. Patt has asked August to postpone the National Party Council meeting, saying it needs to be delayed to properly review the list of delegates. But August isn’t budging, he responded that the meeting will go on as planned and told Patt he’s free to skip it if he wants. Meanwhile, Moses “Shyne” Barrow is still claiming he’s the rightful party leader. His legal team has warned Patt that trying to remove Barrow could lead to legal trouble. Patt, who’s usually stayed quiet during the party’s internal battles, is now speaking out. He’s accusing August of ignoring his authority and called the upcoming meeting “illegitimate.” He’s also urging other party members not to attend. We begin tonight with a perspective from Albert Area Representative Tracy Taegar-Panton.

 

On the Phone: Tracy Panton, Leader of the Opposition

“When you have more than fifty percent of your caretakers and their respective executive committee excluded from an NPC meeting that we have now petition for twice. Then you cannot deem that as any effort to unite. We have been in dialogue with all colleagues, not just Hugo Patt, to say that when we look at all the glaring issues, the corruption by government, the disregard of public officers, the disrespect to teachers, all that we see in these bloated contract that have come to life, the issuance of land, these kinds of stories should be what we ought to be spending our time and attention on and we have been distracted by the internal matters of the matter. So, we have been having these dialogues to find every way as peaceful as possible, as respectfully as possible, to engage colleagues. I think it has now become absolutely clear to the honorable Hugo Patt who is our first deputy party leader and the de facto leader of the party now that Shyne Barrow resigned and also lost his seat, that he has come to recognition that no amount of talking, no amount of reaching out, no kind of mediative process has yielded any results in the interest of the party.”