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Espejo meanwhile is running a campaign looking to non-traditional areas of Caribbean shores for support. We went on the trail with them on Saturday.

Jules Vasquez Reporting
We met Carlos Perdomo on the trail in the West Landivar area walking streets he knows well but this time with the burden of incumbency.

Jules Vasquez
"Certainly it was expected that in the middle of a term would you as a ranking minister you would have to be on the campaign trail."

Hon. Carlos Perdomo
"That's right, you are absolutely correct it was unexpected but after we got the challenge we have to answer and drum up our support."

And drumming up support can be difficult for a candidate that has to campaign on crater riddle streets that voters expect you to fix.

Hon. Carlos Perdomo
"One thing about Caribbean Shores voters, most of them are very open, are very candid and so they tell you what is in their head and it helps you to improve, so it's a challenge to go campaign."

A challenge he has had to face head on and to soften-the-blow so to speak on this day he brought Works Minister Boots Martinez to make sure area residents got the word straight from the man who will fix those streets and clear the drains.

Jules Vasquez
"We are here in the West Landivar area and the streets around here are awful and certainly I know if you go to people's house you are hearing things. Whose fault is that?"

Hon. Carlos Perdomo
"Really the truth is, it is the city council's responsibility and when there is a shortfall we have to call Boots."

Hon. Boots Martinez
"I am here in support of my colleague, I have come behind here at the town meeting and I have assured the people that I will give my colleague a hand. we will be doing cleaning of all the drains, we will rip everything that needs to be rip and leading up to next year we will pave the loop, that is not a problem."

Martinez's presence was to assure residents the work will be done but its more importantly a clear indication that a party as an institution is backing the incumbent.

Hon. Boots Martinez
"When a challenge should come I'll be right beside my colleague and not only right beside my colleague in terms of being out here and making sure that the work here will be done. I'll be out here, leading and walking the streets effective today to give my colleague all the support separate and apart all my friends, all my family, everybody in Caribbean Shores I will ask them to give Mr. Perdomo his support, he is my colleague."

Hon. Carlos Perdomo
"So Mr. Charlie, coming out Sunday?"

Mr. Charlie
"Yes, I'll be there. You know I have known you from 1962/64 in school and I have known you to be an honest and truthful man up to today and I can give you that vote all the time."

Hon. Carlos Perdomo
"Alright, thank you my partner."

And while that choir of support is a loud as it got on Perdomo's quaint campaign trail, it contrasted sharply with the Roger Espejo team which we found in a very different setting from his opponent and presenting on this day at least a very different vibe. Kelly Street and Hunter's Lane are the poor areas of the otherwise residential middle and upper class Caribbean Shores focusing on this nontraditional area where the UDP had never been popular due to no small park that it is crips affiliated is a strategy that Espejo is banking on.

Roger Espejo
"We know that Caribbean Shores has pockets of disenfranchisement and marginalization socially speaking and that the people we want to reach out to, the people that have been forgotten. Caribbean Shores is often seen as an area that doesn't need much, it's by and large one of the highest tax paying constituencies in Belize City but that's not to say that Caribbean Shores doesn't have special needs. This area where we are today is one of those areas and we are focusing on the other more affluent areas but man we have to touch base with these areas even more so."

Jules Vasquez
"Are you hoping to bring out more votes from these disenfranchise areas while Mr. Perdomo relies perhaps on the more affluent area of Caribbean Shores?"

Roger Espejo
"One of the best strategies in campaigning when we are campaigning especially in a short span of time that we've been given, we are only given 3 weeks to campaign, is campaign like hell. So we are campaigning in other areas and we are campaigning here, we campaign in other areas and we come back here."

Espejo feels that they may be able to harness this difficult disenfranchise area and are sure that Perdomo cannot get these voters. On this day Espejo had visible support and wasn't quite clear how or if Perdomo will bring it around.

This woman says she has been a UDP stalwart from the NIP days.

Jules Vasquez
"I get the impression you are supporting Mr. Espejo this time?"

Area Resident
"Yes."

Jules Vasquez
"Why is that?"

Area Resident
"Well because the minister is not doing anything around here so I have to vote for who will be around here because they only promise and promise and they are not doing anything."

Jules Vasquez
"But if you are a good UDP, you know that you can't go against a minister."

Area Resident
"I know that, but try do something."

Jules Vasquez
"But suppose I tell you the next way that there is no sense for voting for Mr. Espejo right now because he is not a minister."

Area Resident
"I will vote for somebody that is younger and who will do better, that's all, I want somebody that will do better."

Jules Vasquez
"But he can't help you out either because......"

Area Resident
"If he can't help me right now I still don't care, no of them do anything for me but I know I want somebody that is constructed."

While he won't be able to get her vote, Perdomo has the institutional support and he is the incumbent and Espejo is still the underdog. But you wouldn't it judging from the way they role through this area today.

Roger Espejo
"There is no best way to win any competition than by your own merit and we want to win on our own esteem, on our own merit."

The truth is this is an election Perdomo did not want and felt he should not have to face in the middle of what for him is a difficult term.

Hon. Carlos Perdomo
"Well certainly it is a lot of stress because you cannot give up your ministerial responsibilities but you have to find the time, its tiring but you have to accept the challenge and we are here to win the convention. The people are receptive and they are trying to figure out what propels Mr. Espejo with such a cool record to want to challenge at this point."

Roger Espejo
"I personally have live in Caribbean Shores for the past 30 years. I come from Caribbean Shores, I have nowhere else to go."

Hon. Carlos Perdomo
"His main backer is somebody that lost his liquor license on Baymen Avenue. We have another backer that his contract was not renewed for different reasons so I think that a lot of the people who are backing Mr. Espejo are people who have personal gripes against me."

Hon. Boots Martinez
"The last time Mr. Perdomo challenge the deputy party leader of the party of which he won the convention and then there is 2 sides to a story. At that time I was one of the person that challenge and say that Mr. Perdomo have a right to run and Mr. Perdomo will tell you that in some quarters there were saying that they don't think he should have challenge the deputy party leader at the time but I too stand for what I believe in. Once it's not changing the constitution, it's going to go. Who choose to support who come out, who don't choose don't come out."

And for them the political calculation always favours the incumbent.

Hon. Carlos Perdomo
"As an incumbent there are a lot of people who are willing to bet on you and so there is the family of course, there are the good friends and there are people who believe in you."

Hon. Boots Martinez
"Incumbency has its power and never take that away. When you come from behind, when you are incumbent you come with at least 300 votes, you must know 300 people that you did something for, the next man that is coming have to try reach 300. I understand politics, an incumbency is a hell of a thing to break loose."

Roger Espejo
"Mr. Perdomo has done reasonable or if not reasonable, has done what he could for the area, we are strongly of the belief that for the next time around we just need a new champion to champion the cause of the people. That's all. Mr. Perdomo still finishes his 5 year tenure, we have the highest respect for him and man we will help him finish his tenure with the chorum in style but we are saying for the next time around - new champion."

Hon. Carlos Perdomo
"The question is the other way around if when I win again will he support me."

It is notable that Espejo's campaign managers are Esquivel loyalists, Orlando Quan Sr. and Esquivel's former chairman and political officer Lewin Moguel.

The convention will be held on Sunday December 5th from 10 to 5 pm at Trinity Methodist School.