Briceño says 5 More Years at Orange Walk Endorsement

On Saturday, the People’s United Party held a convention to endorse four standard bearers for the Orange Walk North, South, East, and Central constituencies. They are Ramon Cervantes, Jose Abelardo Mai, Kevin Bernard and Prime Minister John Briceño, respectively. The district is currently dominated by the P.U.P. as all four standard bearers are current area representatives. News Five’s Britney Gordon was at the event to capture the nominations.

 

Britney Gordon, Reporting

The Sugar City was a spectacle of blue and white on Saturday when the People’s United Party hosted a convention endorsing four candidates as standard bearers for the Orange Walk district. Prime Minister John Briceño was once again nominated as standard bearer for Orange Walk Central.

 

John Briceño, Area Rep, Orange Walk Central

“I humbly accept the nomination to be the standard bearer for Orange Walk Central once again. And yes, we have been winning election after election since 1993, Orange Walk Central haven’t lost a single election, because even when we don’t win town council in Orange Walk Central, we deliver for the People’s United Party.  But that is only possible, I am only a small part of that work.”

 

PUP Orange Walk North standard bearer is Ramon Cervantes. He took the platform to thank his supporters for recognizing the work he has done for the constituency.

 

Ramon Cervantes, Area Rep., Orange Walk, North

“Thank you especially to the beautiful people of Orange Walk North for renewing their confidence, their confidence in me as their candidate for the next elections. I love you all a lot. Thank you to God for giving us life and the strength to be here today for this grandiose moment. Its been ten years since we started the march towards victory for the People’s United Party in Orange Walk North. In those times I remember myself. And I think we all remind ourselves that many thought that we could never win, that we were never going to win. The atmosphere was discouraging and the future was dark, but with the encouragement, rigor and support of you, the northern people, we began to see victory.”

Following Cervantes’s nomination, former mayor and incumbent Orange Walk East Area Representative Kevin Bernard highlighted the progress his constituency has made during his term thus far.

 

Kevin Bernard, Area Representative, Orange Walk East

“Three years ago, when you visited Santa Martha, you couldn’t even make a phone call from that village. Today, Santa Marta now has access to internet, can make proper phone calls, and can communicate to the people. Three and a half years ago, Santa Martha didn’t even have access to healthcare in their community. But today, we can boast that Santa Martha now has a head clinic to serve the people of that community. Ladies and gentlemen, from the day Tower Hill was made a village, and it was always under the UDP.  But today, with the last village council elections that we had and we won, we made a commitment to the people of Tower Hill. They were always depending on the Carmelita water system. But now, Tower Hill residents have their own water system. have done a lot of major works, but there’s much more to be done.”

 

Up next was Jose Abelardo Mai who is running for Orange Walk South. Mai explains that he plans to continue the work he has been doing to improve the livelihoods of farmers.

 

Jose Abelardo Mai, Area Representative, Orange Walk South

“The people in Orange Walk South continue to show support for what I’m doing. And that has motivated me to again be the candidate for the next elections. We still have a lot of work to do. When we inherited the government, I think you all know the state of the country.  Today, we’ve made significant steps improving the country, but as a total country, there’s still a lot to do. I’ve decided to again, make that giant step another five years. Under the PUP of course, under the leadership of John Briceño. I believe that with his leadership and if he feels it proper to make me a minister of cabinet, I will again do my job to the best of my ability.”

 

Prime Minister Briceño has no plans to call an early election. He reiterates his confidence in his party, maintaining that no matter when the election is held, they will have the votes.

 

John Briceño

“We still have a lot of work to do. For instance, we, in the Orange Walk district, we still have to run electricity to San Carlos. We expect to get that done by the end of December. We are looking at starting to pave the road to Guinea Grass, we are going to do it in two phases. So the first year is supposed to start before the end of the year. And like that, there’s so much work that we do, we have to do. I know it is tempting to call an election right now because, well, the UDP continues to implode. But we were elected for five years, and we still have a lot of work to do. So I think that we should continue to do the work. And we believe that if we continue working the way we have over the past three years and nine months that whenever we call elections, next year that the people are still going to support us.”

 

Britney Gordon for News Five.