U.D.P. landslide victory in Municipal Elections…

The red wave that washed across Belize in the last municipal elections in 2006 and in the 2007 general elections, continued to hold with relative ease in yesterday’s municipal elections. In fact in terms of the number of seats, it was a repeat victory for the U.D.P., winning sixty-four of sixty-seven seats countrywide. The fiercest race between the two parties was fought in Orange Walk Town where the number of split ballots, up to eight hundred, resulted in the election of a U.D.P. mayor and the council divided equally by the two parties. The U.D.P. maintained control of Belize City, Corozal, Santa Elena/San Ignacio, Benque Viejo del Carmen, Belmopan, and Dangriga. Further south in Punta Gorda, the P.U.P. mayor and one councilor fell and the council went solidly red. There are many issues to note, firstly the silver lining for the P.U.P. is that they closed the lopsided gap in the margins of victories in most areas across the country. But a surprise for the Opposition was that the V.I.P. in Belmopan garnered more votes than they did. In Orange Walk and Benque Viejo, the voter turn-out was within average in municipal contests at fifty-two percent coming close to general elections when the incumbents normally hold. The highest was in Orange Walk and a historical low was in San Ignacio. There were eighty-eight thousand six hundred and twenty-seven registered voters for the elections, of these forty-two thousand, five hundred and sixty-eight cast their ballots, less than in 2006 when forty-three thousand nine hundred and forty-four voted. And despite an increase in the voting population since then, results show that the voter turnout for the entire country decreased by a whopping nine percent; that is, from a fifty-seven point one nine percent to a forty-seventy point nine eight.