UDP says opposition still strong

The United Democratic Party says despite their loss in the Town Council Elections, to them the statistics show that there is a strong opposition. Michael Finnegan, the UDP Area Representative for the Mesopotamia Division says the electorate was considering several issues when they went to the polls.

Michael Finnegan, UDP Area Representative, Mesopotamia Division

“As far as I am concerned, like for argument, in Corozal the people who voted in Corozal Bay in 1998 are the same people who voted yesterday in the town board election. We lost in Corozal Bay in 1998 by a whopping eight hundred and odd votes. Yesterday we lost in Corozal just over three hundred votes and if you check the different constituencies right, the UDP has done extremely better yesterday than was done in 1998.

The electorate is sending several signals as far as I am concerned. First of all, I believe that the people are saying to my mind that is probably only, it is eighteen months and I am prepared to go along with them and give them two years and six months before I can make judgement on them. Apparently that is the feeling in the districts. Then on the other hand, the people can probably be saying why vote for a UDP town board when the country is controlled and runned by a PUP central government? And could come to the conclusion that voting for a UDP town board, all I will be doing is retard progress for my town because as you know this petty personal politics that exist in Belize.”

Jacqueline Woods

Does your party have any plans right now to change your strategy in securing future votes or the confidence of the people?

Michael Finnegan

What the UDP intends…needs to do now is to identify full time politicians in each constituency. What we have now are part time politicians, politicians who surface when there is an election. If you noticed presently the divisions, the UDP do extremely well in is Queen Square, Mesopotamia and Cayo West. And those are the three areas where the UDP has full-time politicians but in all other constituencies, we have basically part time politicians and our job now will be to organize full time politicians in every division in Belize City.”

Finnegan does not believe the Guatemalan issue was a factor in the results.