Patrick Faber Alleges Fraud After Losing Collet Seat by 63 Votes

Coming off of his loss in the March 12 General Elections, Patrick Faber is claiming that incidents of fraud may have played a hand in his defeat. Faber, who had spent more than 20 years as the Area Representative for Collet, lost to political newcomer Devin Daly by 63 votes on Election Day. Faber says that, while he accepts the loss with grace, he personally saw instances of improprieties on Election Day and made complaints about them. 

Patrick Faber, Former Collet Area Representative: “Before Omar Figueroa and the Cayo North folks for instance succeeded in the court to prove fraud, when it came to those voters that were transferred illegally we would have thought oh these things are as a run of the mill spoken about but not real until we saw where you know there was some gain made in terms of proving it in the court and I think that sent a signal for the nation even now as we look at what happened during the election there is no doubt in my mind that some of those same irregularities happened in Collet. There was an abundance of people coming to vote along with the PUP operatives who claim all of a sudden these people who I’ve known all my days in Collet, all my twenty five years or so in Collet all of a sudden they can’t read, they can’t hold a pen, they don’t know how to mark an x. These things were very real. I complained to our returning officer on record quite a few times about photographing ballots that was very real on Election Day so again while personally I am not one to sit down and cry about the results these things are very real. It may be, as I said in my post about Cayo North, not something we want to use to try to overturn the election results now but if we don’t pay attention to these things because they’re very real, if we don’t pay attention to them and make complaints about them this system of democracy that we practice in this country and that we’ve enjoyed so very long will crumble if those of us who have something to say and know what is going wrong don’t say anything bout it we are going to suffer the consequences.” 

Faber says that, after speaking with his other colleagues, he believes that there was a greater, coordinated effort across the country to commit election fraud, and that there needs to be greater oversight.

Patrick Faber, Former Collet Area Representative: “What exactly is the answer we don’t know but certainly better assessment of who is incapacitated on election day clearly seems to be one of them.”

Reporter: But doctor papers can be faked.

Patrick Faber, Former Collet Area Representative: “But somethings needs to be done. I mean it was so ope and it had to be coordinated on the part of the PUP because it didn’t happen in one constituency, it happened countrywide all of our colleagues while I highlighted what happened in Cayo North on my Facebook post if you listen to the colleagues in the UDP they will all tell you that this was something that was happening countrywide so it must have been part of a planned strategy on the part of the PUP. When we talk about proxies again, people who are not even public servants had proxies being delivered to the ballot box on their behalf and there was a complaint about a senior police man soon to be promoted if not already promoted I am told who was on the compound there at a polling station in Cayo North but a proxy was put in the box on his behalf while he was physically there on the compound. That kind of thing really I mean we need to while I agree with you it’s going to be difficult to control everything there are somethings the Elections and Boundaries Commission and the public servants who run the elections clearly can control and a better handle must be placed on.”

Contrary to Faber’s allegations, the Observer Mission of the Organization of American States preliminary report has not indicated such.  Rather, it noted that Belize’s elections were conducted freely and fairly.