P.U.P. Launches Its City Council Slate

It is slightly more low-key and there were no bells and whistles when the People’s United Party endorsed its eleven candidates for the March Belize City Council elections. The launch took place at the party’s headquarters, Independence Hall. The P.U.P. says the team has no distractions and is dedicated to making Belize City better and more inclusive of its residents. Mayoral candidate Yolanda Schakron told an approving audience that the developments authored by current Mayor and opponent Darrell Bradley have not been uniform across the Old Capital, and have not been accompanied by the kind of transparency and accountability promised to the electorate in 2012. But with thirteen weeks before the elections, is the Opposition off to a late start? The party leader said the P.U.P. has traditionally launched its slate in December.

Francis Fonseca, P.U.P. Leader

Francis Fonseca

“You will find that we have always presented our slates to the residents of Belize City around this time. In fact I remember, I was looking at my own records and I remember on two previous occasions when we did it in January. So that is a mystery that only the media seems to be caught up in. The reality, this is how we’ve always done it. There is always an intensive eight to ten week campaign—because of the Christmas Season and so—so it is really about kicking off in January and having an intensive campaign from early January up until March fourth. We’ve had our candidates in place for several weeks. They have been working, preparing, organizing and in fact already started doing work already. Yolanda, our mayoral candidate, has been out in several divisions and other team members have been out as well. So they have started working, but in terms of an official launch, it has always been our policy to really kick off our campaign in January and to do a launch sometime in December and then we go into the Christmas holidays and really start up again early January and as I said have an eight, nine, ten-week campaign.”

Reporter

“Sir, I don’t mean to be controversial. I know you assume that Channel Seven is controversial just of the nature of it, but our information was that when the party decided on Miss Yolanda Schakron, persons decided to opt out and it cause a little bit of confusion. You all needed to scramble to find replacements. I don’t mean to be unkind to Madam Schakron, but that’s our information.”

Yolanda Schakron

Francis Fonseca

“That’s complete nonsense, absolutely. With the greatest of respect, that’s complete nonsense. You must be hearing that on Wave Radio; I don’t know if that is the source of information. But on the contrary, we had well over twenty-odd candidates who wanted to run for the City Council and that was our greatest challenge; talking to people and trying to encourage people to step aside in favor of others and to continue to support the team.”

Yolanda Schakron, P.U.P. Mayoral Candidate, Belize City Council

“I’m not worried about Darrell; I know that I will bring victory to the P.U.P. I went into the race knowing that Darrell was my opponent. It doesn’t faze me. I’m not worried about the U.D.P. politics. I am here to serve the people. This team we want to make the Belize City people’s lives better.”

Each of the candidates – Jermyn Galvez, Micah Goodin, Natasha Pipersburgh, Michael Novelo, David Gonzalez, Sanjay Pitts, Lennox “DJ Tambran” Young, Delroy Herrera, Delthrude Hylton and Sharrett Yearwood, were introduced to rousing applause as their accomplishments and interests were described. Quite a few are well-known as community activists, like Schakron herself, and they, said party leader Francis Fosneca, represent the change and hope Belize City needs. Nominations for the municipal elections are scheduled for February and the election itself for March fourth.