St. Mary’s Hall on Gabourel Lane, considered the “spiritual home” of the People’s United Party (PUP), sits no less than a block from City Hall on North Front Street, the home of local political power in the nation’s largest city, and on Saturday, it was the venue where the fate of 15 councilor candidates and two mayoral candidates was put in the hands of 512 party delegates – 442 elected according to the popular vote in the 2008 general election (disastrous for the PUP), and another 70 consisting of constituency chairs and at-large delegates.
The mood in the immediate area was upbeat, with the party’s recent leadership conundrum having been solved by the acclamation of Francis Fonseca as Party Leader on Saturday last.
Teacher and guidance counselor at Sadie Vernon Technical High School, Karen Bodden, faced off against former City Administrator Sharole Saldivar for the mayoral nomination.
Bodden told us that all of her work, from stints at Wesley College, lecturing at the former University College of Belize (UCB), working at the Family Court as a counselor, directing the National Drug Abuse Control Council (NDACC) and working at Kolbe Foundation Central Prison as a rehabilitation and education program director, has been about serving young people and families, and she hopes to carry that program into City Hall.
Saldivar, meanwhile, touted her experience in City Hall and in the public service as an antidote to current conditions, which she says has caused City residents, who she believes are “not being properly served by this administration,” to “lose confidence in local government….”
Both promised to tackle issues of mismanagement of public funds and degraded infrastructure of Belize City as two of the first priorities in office if elected.
There were no male nominees in the PUP race; previously, Anne Palacio, Yolanda Schakron and Dr. Isabel Tun had all been named as potential mayoral candidates, only to subsequently withdraw.
Saldivar hailed the all-female race for PUP mayoral nominee as indicative of the “change in times, with women getting more involved in politics at the local level.”
Bodden noted that it follows a “universal trend of women stepping into the political arena, because they feel that their issues are not being addressed by the men, and women need to be represented because of their status as voters.”
Among the councilor candidates, split almost evenly in support for each woman, there was a multiplicity of views as to the City’s priorities.
Erwin X (formerly Jones), a former independent general election candidate, loaded his plate with such issues as education, youth employment and programs, parks and city beautification, programs for the arts, and marshaling human resources. He also identified fighting crime and violence and introducing and improving computer technology for area residents as being among his pet projects.
Peter Lacey, Jr., who runs a successful program tutoring City children which has assisted 1,700 children in eight years, says that for him, it’s all about “improving the quality of life for City residents” who in his view have lived in a regressing City since the UDP took the reins in 2006.
Patrick Thompson, a Social Studies teacher at Excelsior High School and president of the Central Secondary Schools Sports Association (CSSSA), Carnival Association and National Commissioner of the Belize Scout Movement, wants to put the emphasis on the “endangered species” of Belizean youth by creating youth programs and ending the “neglect” of the youth populace. “I will make my actions speak louder than words,” he told Amandala.
Regarding the nature of the campaign – centered on delegates instead of ordinary citizens, opponents Lacey and Gary Ayuso (former KHMH press officer, now working at Anodyne Therapy Center) both say that the process is no different from that of an ordinary campaign.
Lacey told us that while Bodden’s team were going out to meet the delegates, ordinary citizens complained, thinking that this was the general campaign itself.
Ayuso noted the “media blitz” the opposing team put on in the final days of the campaign, but contended that in any case, the PUP would benefit overall from the revived interest in the party.
After three hours of voting inside and clamor outside, the counting began. Less than an hour into the process, reports filtered out that Bodden had built up a seventy-vote edge over Saldivar in the mayoral race, and that Swami Babani, Peter Lacey and Gary Ayuso were up big in the councilors’ race.
The Bodden lead grew to almost a hundred votes, and the final vote was 263 for Bodden (60.04%) to 169 for Saldivar (38.58%). A total of 438 delegates, or 85.55% of all delegates, voted. (Alternates were named in the case of those delegates who for whatever reason did not make it to the booth to vote.)
Swami Babani, a businessman of Indian extraction who was a rumored contender for the Mesopotamia general election nomination that ultimately went to Philip Palacio, topped the polls with 326 votes, or 74.43% of the total vote. He was followed by: Alberto Vellos, 301 votes (68.72%); Peter Lacey, 298 (68.03%); Patrick Thompson, 295 (67.35%); Lennox “DJ Tambran” Young, 284 (64.84%); Gary Ayuso 283 (64.61%); Edward Young 281 (64.16%); Erwin X 278 (63.47%); Dorla Vaughan 259 (59.13%); and Robert “Bobby” Cadle 245 (55.94%).
Missing the cut were Gilroy Usher, Jr., Javier Castellanos, Winston Bennett, Bruce Mangar and Harold Zuniga. By slate, all of the candidates allied with Bodden, save for Usher, Jr., were elected; only two from Saldivar’s allies, Ayuso and Vaughan, made it to the final ten.
The full slate thus has 9 men and two women. All three former aspirants, Cadle, Vellos and Vaughan, returned to the 2012 slate.
The City Council election date is March 7, 2012.
(Note: There were two reported incidents involving police on the scene. Around 2:30 in the afternoon, while Amandala was interviewing Saldivar, police were frog-marching one of her supporters to the Queen Street Police Station, allegedly because of a disturbance he was making by shouting her name. There had been back-and-forth shouting between the two camps prior to the incident, but no physical altercations.
The second incident occurred during the counting phase, when there were reports of a licensed firearm-holder being detained for discharging it in public. That person was also said to have been taken to Queen Street, but no injuries were reported.)