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Sixty-seven seats were up for grabs in yesterday's election and the UDP won sixty four in a landslide victory. Numerically, that is the same result of the town board election in 2006 – which translates into a loss of profound significance for the PUP.

Of a total of 88,627 voters, 43,169 came out to vote, that's 48.71%, low but not altogether anomalous as a review of past municipals show that voter turnout averaging just over 50%, except in aberrant years like 2003 when there were two elections in one. The lowest turnout was recorded in Belize City with 36.8% turnout and the highest in Orange Walk Town with 72.9% turnout followed closely by Benque at 71.9%.

And while they gained no seats numerically, the UDP did make gains in terms of control. The party in government now controls the entire PG Town Board, whereas previously there was a PUP mayor and one councillor. And this time they also won all six councillor seats in Benque Viejo; in 2006 the PUP had won one.

The PUP's only showing was made in Orange Walk where they gained three councillor seats in a Town council that was previously all red. And that's the real news of this election: that on the home turf of the Opposition leader John Briceno the PUP failed to win even that council. And that's because on election day, Briceno focused all his energies on that town, determined to wring out a victory. But he failed to accomplish that, and by multiple assessments that puts his already threatened leadership in serious peril – and it also puts the troubled PUP at another crossroads.

First, if the party failed to make any gain at all since 2006 when the Musa Administration was at the height of its unpopularity, then the whole business about the new PUP distancing itself from the tainted legacy of the old guard just didn't cut it with voters.

And that brings us to Belize City where all the forces that threaten Briceno's leadership are assembled. First, Said Musa's Fort George division had the best showing for the PUP slate. Dr. Cecil Chubby Reneau and his slate won convincingly in that division with an average margin of close to four hundred votes. The PUP slate also won in Albert by a not overwhelming margin and in Lake Independence the PUP squeaked by, winning five councilor and the mayor. Notably, in Freetown, the UDP won that Polling area – notable because it is a seat controlled by the PUP, even if by the narrowest of margins.

The PUP today issued a statement quoting Party Leader John Briceno who said: "The work of rebuilding the PUP continues and must intensify. We still have quite a ways to go to regain the people's confidence." And while confidence is an issue that it appears will continue to plague the PUP party leadership for a time, the UDP is high off it right now – stealing what should have been a sure victory from the Leader of the Opposition and getting one in a town where the cane farmer riots should have assured them a loss.

So, in the city, the UDP slate lost in three divisions, but won in all others, most comfortably in Mesopotamia where Area Representative Michael Finnegan delivered an average margin of victory of over 400 votes for the UDP slate, as expected, the most dominant showing in the election. But that Mayor Moya won comfortably is the truly remarkable thing about yesterday's election; in the three weeks leading up to the election, Moya had been properly pilloried in the press, and we'd venture to say that not since Said Musa, has one public official been so universally attacked – and while with Mr. Musa it happened steadily over four years, with Moya, the timeframe and thus the intensity were far more compressed: from Mark King's wild and rough attack in August of 2008 to the Silvino Moya checks and Social Security with-holdings in March of 2009 – it was about six steady months of media bashing.

And still, she won, comfortably. Though Moya was dead last in the polls for the UDP, she beat Cecil Chubby Reneau by 2,700 votes; she got 8,753 votes while he got 6,051. Yes, that's way down from 2006 when she beat Marshall Nunez by almost six thousand votes, but for all the hammering she took in the headlines, it's a sufficiently convincing win. Equally telling is the fact that Chubby Reneau got just about the same number of votes in 2009 as did Marhsall Nunez in 2006 – again signalling a no-gain election for the PUP.