Two candidates vie for Belize City mayorship
It may be the best kept secret in town, but as I speak tonight a new Mayor and Deputy Mayor are being elected at Belize City Hall. Although the contenders have managed to keep their campaigning for the top spot out of the public’s eye, indications are that the intra-party contest will be a fight to the finish. Incumbent Jose Coye, who is at the end of his third consecutive term, says he wouldn’t mind another one; but his challenger Merilyn Young says it won’t happen so easily as there is no time like the present to give a woman a shot at running the City’s affairs.
Jose Coye, Incumbent Mayor
“I am not sure if I will be challenged, but I have been encouraged and advised to offer myself for the re-election to complete the institutional strengthening program. This is the first phase and we are at the last leg of it, so it?s just the management information system that is to be completed and I have been given some encouragement, but that I will probably decide this evening.”
P. J.
“Going into the elections tonight – I get the impression that you won’t take no for an answer.”
Merilyn Young, Challenger
“I will hold my position offering myself as mayor. I will not offer myself for deputy mayor, because as I said earlier I know that I am qualified to do the job and I am competent enough to manage the city’s affairs. I prefer to loose as mayor than to go down and settle for something less.”
Q: “You were mayor at the time of the last City Council elections and you’ve been mayor since the council was re-elected, is there any reason to believe you won’t be nominated tonight?”
Jose Coye
“Quite frankly I have no reason to believe that I won’t. I think I will get the support of the councilors. I feel reasonably confident that is what will happen.”
Q: “You say it?s time for a change. But should that change occur tonight, will the City Council emerge tomorrow as a stronger one, a divided one, or a weaker one?”
Merilyn Young
“I think sometimes when you do loose, you have a day or two when you have to recuperate. I mean nobody feels good about losing at any time. If I do loose I will come back to City Hall. And like I said I was elected for three years and I will serve my term as three years. I don’t think it will show a sense of dividedness. I think that we as a collective body have another year to work for the citizens of this city and I think that we will come back as nine to do the job that we were elected to do.”
Jose Coye
“I think it was a very challenging period. It was the period when we went for restructuring and when I made my offer for office back in 1995-96 year, I was prompted very much by wanting to be there to steer so to speak the institutional strengthening program and that should have been completed in three years. Unfortunately it could not have been completed and that has been my main challenge to bring about a transformation of the systems in the council and of course in terms of the attitudes and work habits. I think we have gone a far way and it would be appropriate to say in this circumstance that I don’t think that we should be judged from the height we have achieved but maybe form the depth that we have come. The council has made a tremendous change over the last three years in terms of services and generally the management of our resources.”
Merilyn Young
“We as nine elected councilors have been given three years to do the job and I feel that we haven’t really done the job that we were elected to do in two years and like I said we have a whole lot more to do yet in one year and I know the other three councilors are willing and committed to ensure that certain things are done within the next year, when elections arise next year, for the 1999 City Council Elections.”
Q: “Should you not be successful, are you prepared to continue on the council under the guidance of Jose Coye as mayor?”
Merilyn Young
“The people elected me to stay at City Hall for three years and I will stay at City Hall because I owe it to them.”
Q: “If you are not elected as mayor, are you prepared to go on serving on the council, maybe as deputy or as a regular councilor under Merilyn Young?”
Jose Coye
“I have been elected a councilor by the people and I will not betray that trust. I will remain a councilor until the end of the term which is at March 1999.”
Both Coye and Young say that absent councilor Eric Kirkwood’s vote will likely decide the outcome of the elections. Coye says he is confident he has Kirkwood’s proxy safely in his corner, while Young is still trying to make contact with the AWOL politician. Young would like to argue that Kirkwood’s absence has not been legally approved and his seat is therefore vacant, but such a declaration would mean that a bye-election is now necessary. While the U.D.P. might welcome such a chance to redeem itself in the city, it is generally believed the P.U.P. prefers to focus its efforts and momentum on the big election later this year.
