The Village Council elections are over, and just as they have been doing from the first round on March 18, both the traditional political parties – the People’s United Party (PUP) and the United Democratic Part (UDP) – are claiming victory.
Opposition Leader, Hon. Dean Barrow, said that the end results of the election tell him that the UDP is very much in the driver’s seat, while the PUP is saying the results prove they have dominance and countrywide support.
In a press release forwarded to our newspaper yesterday, April 22, the PUP said that it has won 103 villages, while the UDP has won 74, with 16 going to people with no party affiliation.
“These results prove that the countrywide support for the PUP is strong, and the momentum that the party has generated with the victories has given renewed strength to the blue machinery that is priming itself for the general election campaign,” said the PUP’s press release.
Barrow said, on the other hand, that the UDP won many of the bigger villages where there are more voters. In round five of the elections this Sunday, the UDP only put up slates for four of the seven villages that went to the polls. It won three, leaving the PUP with a majority win of four.
The UDP says that it did not put up a slate in the newest village of them all – Mahogany Heights. Barrow told us that the UDP did not contest that village because they had decided that since Mahogany Heights was supposed to be a city—and not a village as it was declared two Fridays ago—they wanted “no part of that.”
That meant a sure victory for the PUP in Mahogany Heights. Official sources tell Amandala that the PUP was challenged, but won by a substantial margin. We were able to get the results for the chairman’s seat, which the PUP won over its opponent by 102 votes to 31 votes.
The PUP boasts that, “…it was an overwhelming victory…proving that the residents of this recently declared village are ready to work with the government in building a beautiful, safe and thriving satellite outlet.”
Mr. Barrow said that the UDP had decided to focus its energies on the four major villages up north in Orange Walk.
The UDP is claiming its most spectacular win in Guinea Grass, where Barrow said their chairman won by 160 votes. Official sources confirm that the UDP chairman got 615 votes, the PUP candidate got 453 votes and the National Reform Party – which had also contested San Lazaro previously and lost – got 180 votes.
The UDP additionally won the villages of Trinidad and August Pine Ridge.
The PUP slate for San Carlos was unchallenged, and so there was no need for a vote there.
The PUP asserted that, “The strength of the PUP is in the North, and the UDP is in for a rude awakening come 2008.”
Barrow concedes that the PUP is stronger in the North than the UDP, and particularly in Corozal, where he said the UDP lost in two of three constituencies. But according to Barrow, the party did fairly well in Orange Walk, particularly in Orange Walk North, where Deputy Party Leader Gaspar Vega, was chief commander.
Barrow told us that he has to concede that with all the scandals and public outrage, the PUP gave no impression of being a party that’s dead, moribund, or dying, and “fought like the devil everywhere.”
Certainly, the weekend’s elections did not go without its share of scuffles and confrontations, particularly in the hotly contested villages of Guinea Grass and San Felipe.
Barrow said that while the UDP claims a majority win in Belize Rural Central—one of the most watched constituencies—represented in the House of Representatives by PUP power broker, Hon. Ralph Fonseca, things are “too close for comfort.”