Municipal Election Countdown: Campaigns Heat Up as Nomination Day Nears

With only 36 days left for the upcoming municipal elections, the aspiring mayors and city councilors are in the full swing of their campaign.  Nomination Day has been set for Wednesday, February 21, and the election in the nine municipalities will be on March 6.  For the Belize City Council, their campaign begun well before the Christmas season last year, and has picked up over the past two weeks.  The council is campaigning with the theme, “stay pan track” and says it’s proven to be a viable and transparent municipal body. Yesterday, our newsroom caught up with Mayor Wagner, who says he’s taking a hands-on approach and walking the city streets. 

Bernard Wagner, Mayor of Belize City: “Born and bred in the Penn Road area and it’s always good to be back in my zone. This street, this field right here, I used to play basketball on this field right here actually, the Bermudez’s property. And so it’s always a pleasure to come back and meet the people in my neighborhood and to see some of their needs that they have, some of the areas we could improve on and really chart a way forward as we get closer to March 6.”

Reporter: So you’re trying to implement a more hands-on approach. What has been some of the concerns from residents throughout the weeks you’ve been walking the city?

Bernard Wagner, Mayor of Belize City: “It essentially has been drainage, infrastructure. I always tell the residents of the city that listen we have over 735 streets in the city. We were able to get close to 90 streets completed within one year. And we have performed well, I believe that we have performed well. People tend to forget that we faced COVID in 2020, 2021 and then right after that we had a huge flood in the Belama area in 2021 and then thereafter we had to go into Lisa and that set us back again. So we really have been a council as we were able to get our revenues back to where it normally would, then we were able to get those infrastructure done for the residents of the city.”

The council has served two consecutive terms and is now looking to make another run at city hall.