And, tonight we'll look at the victory in various parts of the country. Our KREM and Channel 7 "Da Now" teams were all across the country and Cherisse Halsall took on a number of divisions in the west.
She was in Cayo West, Cayo North, Cayo Northeast and Cayo Central - three of those four were UDP seats - and, by the end of the night, they would all be fore the PUP - including Cayo West which the UDP had held comfortably for 22 years.
When those divisions started to flip it was the start of serious trend that the UDP would be decimated at the polls. Cherisse Halsall reports:
The West went fully Blue last night and in Cayo North Micho Chebat and his wife celebrated with a mask ripping smooch. And in his first interview after the win he told us that his party plans to hit the ground running.
Michel "Micho" Chebat - Area Rep, Cayo North "The party has a plan if you've followed us over the past two months we have been unveiling plan Belize which lays the foundation of what we intend to do over the next five years and so this is not a party coming into government blindly, this is a party with a plan. There's a lot to be done and certainly we need to take a look at what exists and how we can get back our people to work and look at what the different projects are and start reaching out, start reaching out and seeing how we can get these plans going."
And as overwhelming as it was the wave couldn't have been predicted when the polls opened at 7:00am that's the hour that we met Orlando Tuki de paz and asked him to gage the mood on the ground and how the election was about to go.
Orlando Tuki Depaz "Well, don't ask me what I think."
Cherisse Halsall "Let's not do that because we can't campaign today, however the mood on the ground, how do you see this crowd this morning as they are lining up to vote?"
Orlando Tuki Depaz "Well it's pretty early here in San Ignacio, at this polling station, all last 2, 3 months, people campaigning and here it is. I don't know, we got to wait and see because it's early and now today this election, a lot of people not really showing their colours like we use to do. Me, you don't have to ask me."
Election coverage took us to Succotz, Benque and even as far as Arenal
Cherisse Halsall "155 villagers have already come out to exercise their civil duty, we were able to see that activity for ourselves on the village main street where both the PUP and the UDP were out in their dozens clade in the war colours of red and blue. Here is Belize's Western most village, it can be difficult to tell who's Belizean and who's Guatemalan and today that goes for voter turnout too as reports continue to come in that voters, Belizeans or not, continue to come across the Mopan since morning."
And it seems the voter improprieties didn't stop there because members of the Belize People Front told us that both the PUP and UDP were paying people to vote.
Kurt Lizarraga - BPF Candidate, Cayo North "You want the whole truth and nothing but the truth, I've been watching PUP representatives and UDP representatives openly paying for their votes and I've also seen people demanding payments for their votes. Okay, so where do we go from here? If the parties are corrupted in that sense and the people are accepting it and demanding in, what chance does Belize have from there?"
And as the day wound on it was evident that the government mandated curfew wasn't going to hold.
Cherisse Halsall "Sir what do you expect the mood to be tonight when all these political supporters are forced to go home, how is that going to affect the counting?"
Returning Officer "Ive seen a lot of gathering outside of the yard and I think it's going to be very difficult to get people off the street at that time. I don't see, the police will have a hard job controlling these people out here."
Ultimately thought that blue wave gave rise to a celebratory mood but at least in Cayo North it wasn't a mood that stopped supporters making it home for that 9:00 pm curfew.
