How Did U.D.P. Select Belize City Municipal Candidates?

The United Democratic Party unveiled its Orange Walk municipal slate on Saturday after revealing its pool of candidates for Belize City a day before.  But what was the selection process in determining the eligibility of persons who submitted their names to run in the March 2024 town and city council elections and how many hopefuls actually wanted to offer themselves for candidacy?  That’s a question that was put to Party Leader Shyne Barrow during a question and answer session that succeeded Friday’s reveal.

Shyne Barrow

Shyne Barrow, Party Leader, U.D.P.

“We actually had about twenty-six applicants for the eleven positions to fill, including mayor and the councilors.  But what we did was in each municipality we involved the standard bearers where there were multiple standard bearers and we looked at the applicants because conventions don’t always get you the end results that you want.  I could remember some former UDP councilor candidates that should definitely not have been on the slate, but because of who the standard bearer wanted in a convention, they were able to get the votes.  So what we did in Belize City in particular is all the standard bearers, all ten of us met and we looked at the twenty-six applicants and we vetted and we gave our recommendations to the nominations committee and this is the ten that we came up with as a collective body.  So it wasn’t a matter of this is all that we could find.  This is the best of the best.  Certainly, this is the best of Belize City, period.”