Shyne Barrow Rejects Panton’s Leadership as UDP Legal Battle Drags On

With the court judgment pending, Shyne Barrow maintains he will not acknowledge Panton’s leadership of the UDP and says that he’s not the only one. Barrow claims to be widely supported within the UDP despite none of his co-claimants showing up to court with him, and Hugo Patt requesting that his name be struck from the case. Today, he took another jab at Panton’s leadership, claiming he has proof that elements within her camp are pushing for an amendment to the party’s constitution so they can challenge her leadership.

Moses “Shyne” Barrow, Former Leader of the Opposition: “I had resigned to give space for a resolution not for Hugo Patt, is my brother, my friend, I don’t want to say anything ill against him but he has no authority to hand over the party to Tracy Panton. “

Reporter: But he has the authority to not take it up.

Moses “Shyne” Barrow, Former Leader of the Opposition: “No. No No.”

Reporter: Then it goes to the most senior parliamentarian. 

Moses “Shyne” Barrow, Former Leader of the Opposition: “That’s for the Leader of the Opposition as far as the party is concerned it would go to the party chairman. What I’m saying is the resolution would be to accept that October 20th was not valid, to recognize Alberto August, say Alberto call the NPC and test the majority because they could very well have the numbers to reverse things, to put things in place that would see Ms.Panton become leader of the proper UDP but they refuse to do that and they maintain that October 20th is valid and it was not. I don’t know what will happen because I can tell you now within her own alliance grouping there are people that are passing a resolution forward to amend the constitution so that anyone can offer themselves to be leader. So the support that she may think that she has is not necessarily there. I will send it to you, I will share it with you off the record as far as who sent it to me I cannot reveal who sent it to me but there are petitions circulating right now where in the alliance cabal where there are people saying well we’re not necessarily happy with just having Tracy as our only option. So there are many things to be sorted out. It’s not just so simple as oh well she won her seat so all hail the queen.”

Panton acknowledged that there will be a review of the party’s constitution, but says that Barrow’s claims about her leadership being challenged are outright lies.

Tracy Panton, Leader of the Opposition: “What will happen moving forward is certainly a comprehensive review of the constitution of the United Democratic Party. There will be a full process, it could go as long as six months, where the views of our delegates and officials of this party will be assessed. So that we don’t have the ambiguity as we have seen in this particular case. When a chairman and a vice chairman exercises gross, in my opinion, gross dereliction of their duties and functions to defend and uphold the constitution of the party that there is a way forward in how we the delegates deal with it and how we the other party officials deal with it. It is unfortunate that they allowed themselves to be used for lack of a better term in that manner and the party must ensure that this sort of a situation is never allowed to happen again. That is a completely untrue statement, completely untrue and he must be held accountable for continuing to cause chaos and spread lies in this party. We had a meeting on March 18th at the Biltmore Plaza, we came together all of us and we signed a declaration and we signed a commitment to move this party forward under my leadership and that is exactly how it will go.” 

Barrow noted that, despite resigning as party leader and losing his seat to Lee Mark Chang, he is still a member of the party’s Central Executive.