Khalid Belisle for Vice Chairman of U.D.P.!
At the close of October twenty-fifth, a total of twelve candidates, including leadership aspirants John Saldivar and Patrick Faber, met the deadline to run for posts in the hierarchy of the United Democratic Party. While the race for Party Leader will once again see Faber and Saldivar facing off at the February 2020 U.D.P. convention, the remaining posts, beginning with Deputy Leader, will involve first-time candidates. Corozal North Area Representative Hugo Patt challenging Albert’s Tracy Panton for that seat. For Second Deputy Leader, senior Minister of Tourism Manuel Heredia Junior will be running against Minister of State for Immigration Beverly Williams. Last Tuesday when we sat down with Attorney General Michael Peyrefitte, he was uncontested in his bid for chairmanship. But that all changed on Friday evening when it became official that he will be challenged by Doctor Carla Barnett and John Castillo, a lesser known candidate within the ranks of the party. Incumbent chairman Alberto August will instead be offering himself for vice chairman of the U.D.P. where he will be facing Clifford “Boss P” Peters and now Belmopan Mayor Khalid Belisle. Like Barnett, Belisle’s bid came in at the eleventh hour. He told News Five’s today of his interest in serving.
On the Phone: Khalid Belisle, Candidate, Deputy Chairman
“I kinda sat back and was kinda looking at the lay of the land in terms of applications and what was being reported in the news in regards to some of the other posts when late in last week when I realized that former mayor of Punta Gorda, my colleague Ms. Fern Gutierrez would not be offering herself for that same post that she has held for the past few years. I felt it to give it some thought and I was kind of looking at it from two angles really. One of them was that she had for some time represented a voice of the municipal councils, particularly of course the UDP municipal councils, considering that she had been a former mayor of Punta Gorda and a councilor even before that. And then, from the other perspective as I’ve said to a couple other people, I mean absolutely no disrespect or insult to anyone by it, but she was the youngest voice at that head table, so to speak, and so, you know, I wanted to ensure as much as I am able to represent the young population anymore that we would be sure to have a youth voice for the most part at that same head table. So it was really from those two angles that I took the approach and that kind of led to me offering myself in the final analysis of it.”
