7 News Belize

Cousin Gives Hon. Heredia Grief
posted (August 8, 2018)

Manuel Heredia Jr., the Belize Rural South Area Representative, was first elected to office back in 2003. That's 15-year run, and now, his cousin, Gary Greif, a sitting Town Councillor who was re-elected to office in the March 7 municipal elections, wants to unseat him.

7News has confirmed that Greif's application to run in a UDP convention against Heredia was approved. 

The party now has to set a date for the voters of San Pedro and Caye Caulker to decide which of these two candidates should be their UDP standard bearer for the 2020 General elections.

Greif may not be as well-known nationally as his cousin, Manuel Heredia, but he is now serving his second term in office at the Town Council. From 2015 to 2018, he served San Pedro as the Deputy Mayor. 

Of course, he's going up against a former mayor, and an area rep., who's term in office for Belize Rural south remains unbroken for that entire 15 years. 

Today, the press asked Heredia about Greif's interest in his job, and he didn't seem too impressed. Here's how that conversation went:

Hon. Manuel Heredia Jr. - Area Rep, Belize Rural South
"There is a time for everything and then the young generation today sometimes believe that they should start running before you creep you know and many times they have been proven wrong, that you have to creep, walk then run and then finally you get to a certain point and I must say very clearly this party in San Pedro, the UDP; anybody if you take a poll in San Pedro, we tell you that it was myself together with a small group, his grandfather that was the pioneer there. But I was that the one that actually made this party win for the first time over there and I have been repeatedly winning over and over and you speak that you are not crowned a king when you're elected, it's an insult to our prime minister, to senior members like Finnegan - they have been there for many years and there is a time when I will decide when to step down and at that point I will support anybody that comes around but if you want to come in without the support of our executive, without the support of myself, you're looking for a disaster, you're looking to probably finalize your career before you start."

Reporter
"You don't think this is going to create some bad blood in that area?"

Hon. Manuel Heredia Jr.
"Let me be very frank and honest, any convention you have, I don't believe in conventions, I believe in democracy but I don't believe too much in conventions - but perfectly right, you're own UDP, there are hard feelings within the families; in this particular case we are family. It will separate some of them and there will be hard feelings at the end of the convention."

As viewers are aware, the UDP conventions have been scheduled for some time between November of this year, and January of next year. Whenever the convention actually takes place, we'll tell you all about it.

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