UDP Struggles in Village Elections Amid Leadership Uncertainty

Leader of the Opposition Tracy Panton says the United Democratic Party (UDP) is challenged in taking part in the village council elections. She noted that with the absence of a clarity on the party’s leadership, the opposition is limited in its participation in the ongoing village council elections.  In the first round of elections, held last weekend, the opposition only managed to capture two out of the thirty-seven villages. Panton highlighted that the absence of clear leadership has hindered the UDP’s ability to mount a cohesive campaign, resulting in the opposition not contesting several villages. Yesterday, she spoke about her party’s rather weak showing during the elections and stated that she hopes politics would be removed from the process. 

Tracy Panton, Leader of the Opposition: “As you know we still  don’t have in place a clear decisive leader of the party. Or I really don’t think personally,  at the village council level we should be politicizing these elections. Villages are small, communities are small and when we politicize these elections,  it was never politicized before as you know, but when we politicize it instead of teaching people to work together we cause a lot of divisions in these small villages. And so we don’t anticipate that we can contest all the villages that are up this year. We just don’t have the resources to do that. We have things to heal and to fix in the party. That has to be given a greater degree of urgency so these matters can be settled so we can be fully ready to contest the municipal elections.”

Reporter: So you’re not giving it the greater importance at this time.

Tracy Panton, Leader of the Opposition: “I’m not saying that it’s not important and I would not want to leave you with that impression but we have to operate within the means that we have and we have to be able to balance.”

Panton added that the party hopes to gain some ground during the next elections.