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Will John Support Monchi?
posted (March 11, 2016)
But just who will lead that PUP movement in Orange Walk North? The most logical candidate is Monchi Cervantez who, in the last general elections, managed to close the gap in Vega's vote margin. But Cervantez, although hailing from the same Town as Briceno, was a Francis Fonseca supporter during the national party convention which took place last month. So is there bad blood between these two? And could that mean Cervantez's ultimate ouster as the PUP standard bearer for Orange Walk North? Here is what Briceño had to say about it.

Hon. John Briceno, Leader of the Opposition
"Mr. Cervantes, for whatever reasons decided that he wanted to support Mr. Fonseca and that is his right and I respect that. But now that is finished, I am the leader and as the leader I need to reach out to everybody and I want to work with also Mr. Cervantes, as long as he wants to work with me. One of the things that I've said when I was campaigning is that our constitution mandates that there must be conventions to elect our standard bearers. Even in Orange Walk Central we need to have a convention and that goes to say that in Orange Walk North we are going to have a convention. Now, we know that Mr. Cervantes did a lot of work there and obviously he would be the front runner. Is there anybody else that is interested in running in Orange Walk North? I don't know. Nobody has come to me to say that they have any interest. But we will have a convention."

Emanuel Pech
"Seeing that Cervantes came really close to unseating one of the most powerful seats for the UDP in Orange Walk, wouldn't the PUP know better to keep him?"

Hon. John Briceno, Leader of the Opposition
"Let me repeat again, the constitution states that there must be a convention to elect each standard bearer and there is going to be a convention in all 31 constituencies including the constituency of Orange Walk Central of where I am the representative. And if anybody wants to run in Orange Walk Central, that is their right and they should be afforded the opportunity to run to represent this great party of ours."

Emanuel Pech
"But could you support him in that convention nonetheless. Support him one hundred percent although he didn't support you at the national convention?"

Hon. John Briceno, Leader of the Opposition
"As the leader I should not get involved with anyone. In the next 30 divisions I am not going to be out there campaigning for anyone, because when you do that it creates problems. So we leave that to the voters of the different divisions and that's what going to happen."

We note that Vega has won the Orange Walk North seat for the UDP for three consecutive elections; and he did so with comfortable margins.

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