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The “independents” making waves in village council elections
April 26, 2010
Dear Editor,
Thanks for publishing my letter last week pointing out how many voters are choosing “independent” candidates in the village council elections.
I hear now that Esperanza, in Cayo, elected an independent Chairperson. Also in Cayo, the villagers of Blackman Eddy voted for an independent slate. Then, in Chan Pine Ridge in Orange Walk, the people also elected an independent Chairman.
And independent candidates got the majority in Burrell Boom, replacing the PUP, which had won that large village in 2007. Independent candidates also won Freetown Sibun and Gracie Rock which were once solid blue villages in the Belize Rural Central Division.
Here in Rural Central, which used to be controlled by PUP moneyman Ralph Fonseca, not a single village has voted for the PUP so far.
These latest results can be added to the other major villages that so far have voted for independent candidates, namely Caye Caulker, Placencia, Big Falls and Palmar.
It is so clear that in most cases, voters that once supported the PUP are choosing to vote for independents because the PUP has refused to change. They want to offer the voters the same old recipe. But that recipe of Said Musa and Ralph Fonseca choked us and for sure, we are not going to swallow that combination again.
The PUP leaders should remember what happened in Belmopan last March, when the VIP beat them. It happened in Belmopan then, and it’s happening in the villages now.
Millicent Usher
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