Zenaida will appeal expulsion from the UDP

One week ago, on Friday, the United Democratic Party’s Ethics and Integrity Committee took the decision to expel the city’s first female mayor. Zenaida Moya Flowers’ sin was an explosive interview she gave in which she use colorful language directed at Prime Minister Dean Barrow. Moya Flowers has not given any comments since her expulsion and is currently in Canada on an official visit. While many believe she is contemplating her next move, it seems the decision has already been made. Moya Flowers is down, but certainly not out. That is the message coming today from Housing Minister Michael Finnegan. Finnegan, is one of her staunchest allies who has stuck with her through thick and thin in her troubles with the prime minister. He arrived in the country this afternoon from the US and made it clear that he has advised her to appeal and Moya Flowers told him no matter what happens, she will be a UDP to the day she dies.

Michael Finnegan

“He did a beautiful thing. He left the doors open. The ballgame is now in the mayor’s court. Mister Barrow said if you are serious, then, not in these words, but something can happen, but lets show we that your are serious, but still on the other hand, you must temper justice with mercy. And I believe that the– personally me, and I don’t want to dwell in it and thing because I’m a person like to heal, I like to heal and bring people together– life is short and we all must pray and worship god and try to find healing with our self”

Jose Sanchez

“So, would you like to see Moya back in the party?”’

Michael Finnegan

“I believe that the decision was cruel and tough.”

Jules Vasquez

“You feel that they shouldn’t have gone to the maximum punishment?”

Michael Finnegan

“That is my view; they see it, probably another way, but in my view, to me it was not necessary, she has, in my view, publicly regret what she said and in life all of us say things that we wish we neva seh. I have already advised her to file an appeal. She’s my friend.”

Jose Sanchez,

“So, she said she will file the appeal?”

Michael Finnegan

“She will file an appeal. She told me so when she called me last week in the state and she told me what was happening. I said don’t worry about it, whether she is expelled or whatever the case may be. She will be a UDP until her death. I am quoting from her. “If they expel me I will remain a UDP and I will continue to work for the UPD and you are the only person that wants me to work for the UDP, then I will work for the UDP. You don’t want it no better than that. She harbors no hate and no grudge.”

Channel 5

Is it cold out there, Zenaida?

Mayor of Belize City, Zenaida Moya-Flowers, has been expelled from the ruling United Democratic Party as of Friday, May 21, 2010. She now has 30 days to appeal that expulsion, UDP party chairman, Douglas Singh, confirmed to Amandala today.

The decision from the Ethics and Integrity Committee (EIC) of the UDP to expel the Mayor was communicated to her via letter on Friday, and as of press time, no appeal has been received. This committee, we understand, is made up of three persons, two elected by the party and the third appointed by those elected persons.

Channel 7 News has identified its chair as Marilyn Williams, head of the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) and former UDP Senator and aspirant in the Albert Division.

Moya-Flowers briefly told Amandala on Tuesday night after the City Council public meeting that she was in the process of consulting her “advisors,” and that that was where it stood at the moment. She said she would communicate her decision as soon as she was done with these consultations.

We attempted to reach her at her office at City Hall this afternoon, but were informed that she left Belize today and will be back in office next Tuesday.

Singh told us that the EIC was tasked to review charges the Mayor had made of allegedly inappropriate conduct on the part of Prime Minister Dean Barrow in his capacity of political leader of the UDP. The Mayor charged Mr. Barrow with instigating the laying of charges against her for uttering a false document and not complying with City Council financial regulations, “pervert(ing) the course of justice by conspiring with or manipulating the Director of Public Prosecutions…”, as the Prime Minister recounted it to Amandala’s Adele Ramos on the May 25, 2010 edition of the Adele Ramos Show on KREM Radio and Television.

These charges were infamously made in a joint media interview on October 1, 2009 after the Mayor was first read the charges in conjunction with City Administrator Dr. Kiran Vanjani, Kiran Bhudrani and now-deceased Financial Director at City Hall, Dwain Davis. The preliminary inquiry into the charges was originally scheduled for April but will now be held on June 7 in #1 Magistrate’s Court.

According to Singh, the Mayor got her chance to respond, and thereafter the EIC convened to review both sides. The EIC could have done one of three things: fine, suspend or expel the Mayor.

We understand that Pastor Howell Longsworth represented her at the hearing as a UDP member in good standing (he is a former UDP aspirant in the Freetown Division and founder/general manager of HL’s Burgers).

“The Ethics and Integrity Committee has made its decision. Everything is now in the hands of the Mayor,” Singh summarized, adding that Moya-Flowers can appeal to the National Party Council, which he, as party chairman, chairs, at which point a meeting would be called to hear the matter.

Because the Mayor was (twice) elected to her post, she cannot be removed for the time being, but if she does not appeal, the decision becomes final and she will no longer enjoy the confidence of the Party.

Reviewing the decision on Tuesday night’s Adele Ramos Show, the P.M. said he never took Moya-Flowers’ charges “personally,” but because others in the party did, the procedure of investigating the charges was started.

That procedure was interrupted by a lawsuit filed on the Mayor’s behalf by her attorneys, Dr. Elson Kaseke and Godfrey Smith, to reinstate her to the National Party Council (from which she had been expelled shortly after her court appearance and interview) and injunct the party’s Central Executive from conducting an investigation of the charges and instituting disciplinary sanctions.

Madam Justice of the Supreme Court, Minnet Hafiz-Bertram, ruled in the Mayor’s favor in December concerning the reinstatement, but denied the injunction, beginning the current train of events.

As Godfrey Smith explained it to then-news reporter for Channel 7 Jacqueline Godwin, “…a party can expel (a) member or discipline its members if it so wishes but in doing that it has to follow its own rules…”; that is, the Central Executive must follow the process outlined by Singh above.

The UDP was defended in that case by attorneys Deanne Barrow and Michael Young, S. C., the former of whom cited the case as a win for the party in that it could freely investigate the charges and move appropriately, which it has now done.

This is the first expulsion from the UDP, according to informed sources, since the schism with the now-defunct National Alliance for Belizean Rights (NABR) in 1991, which saw Derek Aikman, Bernard Q. Pitts and Hubert Elrington expelled. All three eventually returned to the party and Aikman and Elrington both ran in subsequent elections for the UDP, Elrington in 1993 (win) and 1998 (loss), and Aikman after coming out of bankruptcy in 1998 (loss). Hubert Elrington ran in the Lake Independence constituency as an independent candidate in the 2003 general elections.

Concerning the hearing itself, the Prime Minister, who said he was not present and is not a member of the EIC, told Adele Ramos that from his information, “…Miss Moya did not seek to fight the case, did not seek to dispute the charge; that she in effect threw herself upon the mercy of the [panel], admitted she had done wrong and said to them that she was sorry… (she) said she wished to make amends for that, she wished for reconciliation…”

Neither the Mayor nor anyone within the party has come forward publicly to dispute this version of events.

With the well publicized divisions within the UDP officials at City Hall, we questioned whether Moya remaining independent or joining the PUP would make matters there worse; Barrow replied that it would not, and that “there is nothing institutionally to prevent this from happening, and whether such an arrangement can be made to function well enough in practice depends in my view altogether on the personalities,” citing previous mixed councils and the situation of the 2006-09 Punta Gorda Town Council, in which the majority of councilors were UDP but Mayor Carlos Galvez and one councilor were PUP.

Barrow claimed no sense of gratification at the decision, saying that the accusations to him were part of the “hurly-burly of politics”, but admitted that some in the party thought Zenaida’s actions were “the last straw” and that she and the Party had been “diverging” in their interests for sometime now.

Concerning what this would do to alleged aspirations by the Mayor to run for national office, the Prime Minister revealed that Moya-Flowers would probably not have been allowed to run for the UDP in upcoming elections.

Despite her extreme popularity at the time she entered politics, the P.M. stated, the results of the 2009 City Council elections (in which she finished dead last on her slate) confirmed the leveling out of her political trajectory. He went on to cite the feeling that the Mayor felt that “she was not subject to party discipline the way others are subject to party discipline” and lingering questions about her administration as being responsible for erosion of the Mayor’s political support.

Mayor Moya-Flowers’ acknowledged political mentor and supporter, Mesopotamia area representative, Hon. Michael Finnegan, has been sidelined by treatment for prostate cancer and is out of the country.

Mrs. Moya-Flowers’ political career began in 2005 at the height of popular protests against the then-administration of Said Musa, protests in which Moya-Flowers participated as a leader of, first, the Association of Public Service Senior Managers (APSSM), and later the Public Service Union (PSU). Her rise to fame crested with her defeat of three male candidates to win the UDP nomination for Mayor, and then leading her slate to a comprehensive victory over the People’s United Party in municipal elections in 2006.

Amandala