People’s United Party Makes Decision on Belize City Mayor Endorsement

Tonight, there is still much speculation as it relates to whether the People’s United Party will endorse current Belize City Mayor Bernard Wagner and force Allan Pollard to step down. However, a decision has been made by the PUP’s National Executive, who met today for almost three hours in Belize City. This morning, the political body, comprised of the PUP’s upper echelon, heard recommendations from the party’s National Campaign Manager and approved his suggestions. But, Party Chairman Henry Charles Usher was tight-lipped about the decision. Usher stated that the party would announce its judgment after the applicants have been informed. 

Henry Charles Usher, Public Service, PUP Chairman: “We went through all of those with the national campaign manager and the recommendations being brought forward and the national executive approved the recommendations made by the national campaign manager. The recommendations coming were approved but we have to reach out to our candidates first. We can’t allow the media to have that first. We have to reach out to all our candidates country-wide before we can make it public. That’s fair enough. Don’t you think? The party always supports all of our candidates, Vejea, and we are making sure that we have a process, a vetting process that has been completed for all nine municipalities. Those recommendations were made. We had discussions this morning. Perhaps there were some disagreements with some of them, but in the end, a unanimous position was taken, and that’s the position that the party will now take.” 

Reporter: Do you see maybe a… Do you see maybe an issue arising within the party if indeed there is a decision to not hold a convention for a mayoral candidate?

Henry Charles Usher, Public Service, PUP Chairman: “I believe that there are always persons who feel a bit disappointed, but certainly I feel that the party has made the decisions going through a very tedious process, even Channel 7 said man, the party is taking long to come up with their candidates, but it is a process. We had to go through 125 applications and this was country-wide.”

The PUP received a total of 125 countrywide applications, 24 mayoral applications, and 101 councilor applications.