The first round of village council elections were held over the weekend with elections in 47 villages. But before we tell you what it means politically, we should give you some background: typically village council candidates do not overtly campaign under the colour of either party, but covertly many village slates are backed by, or faithful to one party or the other. There are however, genuinely independent, non-affiliated slates that do get elected.
So without declared party affiliations by the winning councils, tonight, both major political parties are claiming victory in a majority of those 47 villages.
The UDP has claimed control of 34 of 47 village councils, most notably in western PUP strongholds such as Valley of Peace, Succotz, Unitedville, and Buena Vista.
The Opposition is also boasting of winning control of 6 of 7 seats in the Stann Creek District, most notably in Independence Village where the UDP slate defeated a slate led by Tony Zabaneh and including his wife, Madam Speaker, Betty Zabaneh.
The UDP is also claiming 5 of the 7 village elections in the Belize district, all 5 in Toledo east, and admits to just holding onto one in the Corozal District, where villages stayed blue.
And while that's the UDP story, the PUP version, as you might expect, is far different. But the PUP is short on numbers, only saying that of 19 villages in Toledo and Corozal, they won 15. The UDP claims it won 11 of those villages where we note that official figures show there were actually 18 elections, not 19.
But beyond the north and south, the PUP has more excuses than boasts: explaining that poor turnout affected it in Cayo, and that the PUP slate only lost by 2% in Independence.
With that the PUP claims, quite randomly, that it won 60% of the villages, with another 18% of the winning councils being independent.
Elections continue for the next two weeks - and fierce jockeying by the two major parties is expected to continue.
