Ernesto Torres for Mayor! He Tells News Five Why

The municipal election season is drawing closer and already most of the major political parties’ candidates are on the campaign trail. Participation from the alternative and independent movements has been less in evidence. But one man who never seems to stop campaigning is Ernesto Torres. The driving instructor is a constant presence on the radio airwaves and a critic of municipal and occasionally national administration. But don’t ask him if he thinks he can do better – that’s why he invited us to his residence to announce another campaign for mayor of Belize City. News Five’s Aaron Humes details why Torres thinks the third time is the charm.

Aaron Humes, Reporting

He may be one man, but Ernesto Torres believes he is not alone. And that is what keeps him going as he attempts for the third consecutive time to become chief executive of the Old Capital he has lived in all his life.

Ernesto Torres

Ernesto Torres, Independent Mayoral Candidate

“I have been meeting people across the city: at their homes, in the streets, at stores across the city. Going to homes, I have been doing this from ever since I have been striving and wanting to get into City Hall, first as a councilor, then further more now as the Mayor. And the sense I get from the public or the pulse is that people don’t want change. People have been changing and changing; you put in this party, this party comes, promises thing will differ, the other party comes and matters get worse. So where are we – flip, flop, flip, flop; people noh want to continue.”

Torres personally has been associated with both the People’s United Party and United Democratic Party; in fact he is no stranger to Belize City politics. He assesses his priorities and those of the City to be maintaining infrastructure – streets, drains and the like – and adds that anything else would be outside the mandate of a Council he leads.

Ernesto Torres

“In general, the responsibility of a City Council – not [just] the Mayor, the City Council – is to care for Belize City infrastructure: cut the grass to make the place look fresh and sanitable; haul the trash, the material that needs to be hauled. These are the areas people want, okay – keep your city clean, keep your water draining when it rains. You have lot of people – since they did all these cementing they cry, they boast so much they cement so much streets – lordy, lordy, lordy! It’s so simple; you give a billion dollars you see how many streets I concrete, because dah just buy, give me money, go buy, place the cement and say, see how much I do. Listen to me, since they cement lots of areas – apart from the wasted spending, some streets were broken up and re-concreted and so on – we have our water pooling more than ever when it rains. And you have some areas that remain the same for the past sixteen, eighteen, twenty years.”

Torres says he is prepared to work with anyone and everyone; he will have to in the event that he is elected. But he says this is no stepping stone to higher political aspirations, but the culmination of a life-long love affair with Belize City.

Ernesto Torres

“You could see how we feel, like we have lost taste and humanity in Belize City with these councils of the past. Ay man, some of them get into office, they have never had bicycles but now they have expensive SUV’s. I don’t know what that means, but they aren’t paying any interest at all in our City. We need somebody that will diligently get up in the morning, see what the city needs – across the city, not just certain areas. People will be better off with me, because I don’t want to go to Belmopan, so I won’t just take care of Kings’ Park or Freetown so that people could vote for me to go to the House of Representatives. I will care for the City in general.”

Aaron Humes reporting for News Five.