Community campaigner Albertha Waite has been selected by the United Bermuda Party candidate to fight Devonshire North Central — a key election battleground in the coming election.

The seat, also known as Constituency 13, was won by the Progressive Labour Party’s Glenn Blakeney by 105 votes last time. Mrs. Waite, who has lived in the seat for more than 20 years, represented her neighbours as chairperson of the Mary Victoria/Alexandra Road neighbourhood housing committee which stopped a Government push to cram in more houses.

Mrs. Waite grew up in Middletown raised by staunch UBP supporters.

After working in the beauty business she swapped to supermarkets, working her way up from being a cashier with the Piggly Wiggly supermarket chain, to becoming the first black woman to manage a full-service supermarket in Bermuda when she took over the Somerset Marketplace store.

For the last six years she has been Director of Human Resources with Marketplace, a position she has held for six years.

Mr. Waite, a married mother-of-two, said she is committed to providing opportunities for the “forgotten guys” that she sees in her constituency.

She said: “If we can show them compassion, demonstrate genuine concern, people will change.”

She wants more recreation areas for seniors and children and better-maintained roads and street lighting — and regular, consistent garbage collection.

Mrs. Waite told The Royal Gazette she had taken a year and a half to make a decision after being asked to run as a candidate but was now convinced should could win after a very positive response on the door step.