If you listened to Mayor Moya’s interview, you heard her with some very hard talk for and about the party’s ground commander, Anthony Boots Martinez. Basically she made two claims: first that he had tried to influence her to sign a contract in favour of one of his financiers; second that he had only delivered 400 votes for her at the last mayoral convention in 2005. Well today we caught up with Boots Martinez as he was touring the city with his candidate Anthony Michael. He told us that he did call Mayor Moya for Belize Waste Control.
Hon. Boots Martinez, Minister of Works
“I am not in a political war with no such person. I need to place on the record though, and I will call the name of the sanitation company, it is Belize Waste Control which sits in the constituency of Port Loyola. We have over 15 employees employed there even before the Mayor was elected, that is two. Three, that I spoke to the Mayor one time in regard to that contact where Mr. Griffith, one of the principal owners, got a letter stating that his contract will not be renewed and my only conversation with Mayor at the time was to ask her to look at the contract favorably based on the consideration of the workers there and also too, I won’t dodge from the fact, Mr. Griffith has been a supporter of my constituency. He has assisted us for years in regards to education, in regards to food for people, in regards to some infrastructural work so I make no apology for that.
The way how that has been put is like something is in there for me. Everything I look in regards to politics is for my people. I can fend for myself. I have been a struggler for donkey years and I have fended for myself. I am a survivor, I’ve been through all the scars of wars but one thing I know also is that when these type of battles come up – there will be lil...but as a senior man, as I am getting to be an astute politician, I will not cast no aspersion on nobody. I still maintain that she is a good mayoral candidate. I will not dispel that.”
Jules Vasquez,
It is known that the last time, even the Mayor concedes that you delivered 400 people at the convention in support of her. It is felt that Port Loyola and Boots Martinez are able to make or break a convention because of the numbers you can mobilize.
Hon. Boots Martinez,
“Let me place on the record we delivered over 900 people. I am saying for you on the record, and that is recorded, that we have brought out over 900 people and the records are there, right over here at ACC in regards to support for her. So I am just the set the record straight and that is where it stops. I want to stop there.”
Jules Vasquez,
But looking overall at the strategy, it is said that Boots Martinez within the UDP is a convention breaker or maker. Who Boots Martinez supports as goes ye, so goes the convention. Do you feel that because you are able to mobilize large crowds and it is an open convention that your support will be a differentiating factor between the two candidates on convention day?
Hon. Boots Martinez,
“I have heard the other side, that the Mayor is popular and I do agree and I think if she is popular then kudos to her. I think she’ll win if she’s popular. Moving around I know that it is going to be a good convention.”
Jules Vasquez,
Boots Martinez noh lose convention.
Hon. Boots Martinez,
“Well there is always room for history. Like I explained to a colleague of mine, I’ve always been a convention specialist.”
Our records show that Moya won the last mayoral convention with 2,392 votes. We’ll have more from Boots Martinez later, when he speaks in his capacity as Works Minister telling us that a definite timeline has been set for the paving of Albert and Regent Streets.
