The UDP held their City Council convention yesterday in Belize City. It was a sizeable City Council convention, fielding 24 candidates, and attracting over 3,700 supporters who came to vote for their mayor and 10 councilors. The most high profile candidate Zenaida Moya easily outmatched her competition, by a margin of almost four to one. Here's a brief look at the event.
Jules VasquezReporting,
This was the line that we encountered when we visited the convention scene on the ACC high school grounds in the afternoon. The line for those voting in Port Loyola stretched around the basketball court, and voters had to wait more than
an hour to cast their ballots. They voted overwhelmingly for this woman Zenaida Moya who bested her closest opponent, Bernard Watler by 1840 votes.
Zenaida Moya,
"I am not that surprised. We feel that the margin of how much I won is something that I must say it is an overwhelming victory."
It is overwhelming but will her success be soured by bitterness in those she defeated so handily?
Zenaida Moya,
"We have to ensure that we continue as professionals and we deal with this matter rationally. Either one of us and we have to respect that and be happy for this individual."
Moya, the first woman to run for mayor, leads a ballot with three women councilors offering themselves. In fact Laura Esquivel, the daughter of Manuel topped the polls getting more votes than even Moya.
Zenaida Moya,
"There are some people who did come out and say men have been have been messing up for too long and its time to give the females a chance. So to all of those who thought that way too, hey thanks very much and come first March make sure you do the same thing."
But to get them to do the same thing, she will have to go against Marshall Nunez.
Jules Vasquez,
You will mostly likely go up against Marshall Nunez who is a senior city councilor and, all things considered, somebody who seems to enjoy the respect of the community. How will you confront this next challenge?
Zenaida Moya,
"I feel it definitely is a positive him running against myself right now. All of the different issues that we are talking about, he has been a part of the escalation of all the ills that have been plaguing Belize. He has been a part of the administration."
That's the next battle: to link Marshall to the PUP and to continue to build her success on the link between the conscience of the social partners and the brand of the UDP.
As we noted, Moya got 2,392 votes, while Bernard Watler got 552, Sir Andie received 447 and Ernesto Torres got 292 votes. The councilors are led by Laura Esquivel who earned 2,531 votes and she is followed by Hyacinth Latchman, Michael Anthony, Phillip Willoughby, Wayne Usher, Dean Samuels, Mark King, and Leila Peyrefitte, Calvert Quilter and Gilroy Middleton. With 3,700 votes, the UDP got about 12% of the 33,000 votes in the city.
