Kevin Bernard Draws Highest Election Polls; Does Not Want Leadership

His division scored big at the polls with a whopping eighty-six percent on March twelfth. It’s the first for Orange Walk East, and with that win, people are starting to wonder if he should step up and lead the party once PM Briceño steps down. Kevin Bernard isn’t new to success either – before joining central government, he had a stellar career as a three-term mayor and even served as a town councilor in Orange Walk. Today, we asked Bernard if he should be seen as a potential leader for the P.U.P.

 

Kevin Bernard, Minister of Health & Wellness

“I believe in one thing, I have always said this to myself and my family have always said, we do it with humility. We start from somewhere.  I started off seeing that I wanted to make a change in my community where I started as a councilor, I decided that I think I could do a done much more and so I served as mayor for three consecutive terms. I then thought that I believe that I can do even much more and serving in the capacity as an area representative and I want to thank the great people of Orange Walk East for having given me that opportunity and I have been now re-elected. My plan is to continue to work for the people in the constituency, and  we will cross that bridge when we get there at some point. Of course, as I said, as long as the people of Orange Walk East puts me here, I’m prepared to work for the benefit of them, and the benefit of Belize, and I know that people have been asking me about that, but for me, that’s not the priority at this stage. That is not my priority. My priority is to continue to work for people, for Orange Walk East. We will see where that trajectory takes us or where it takes me at some point. We have great people in this party that can lead this party at some point down the road. For now, I’m focused on the fact that John Briceno is our prime minister. He’s our leader, and as long as he’s leading this party, I’m there to support our leader. You could look at every area and there, there are people that can lead this party. Once and whenever the Prime Minister decides to leave politics, I mean, you have great people in the west. You have great people in the south. You have people in the north, and of course in the city there are great people that can be lead. As the Prime Minister mentioned, he has a good bench of individuals that can at some point take on the mantle of leadership, but I don’t think that at the end of the day, it’s about whether Belize City or Belize District is the strength of the political power within any party. I think that it’s up to the delegates of a party whenever that time comes around, who will decide who they want to lead the party whenever that time comes. So for now, as I said, my focus is to continue to work on Orange Walk East to ensure that we continue to support our leader in his quest and vision to build on planBelize and planBelize 2.0 so that we can achieve our objectives and a third term sometime down the road.”