NATCHEZ — Tony Byrne served five terms as mayor of Natchez, the last mayor to serve multiple terms, other than Natchez Mayor Butch Brown’s first administration from 1992 to 2000.

Byrne served as mayor of Natchez for 20 consecutive years, from 1968 to 1988.

Byrne said he does not know why it seemingly has become more difficult for a mayor here to be elected to multiple terms. However, Byrne said he suspects it is because of the advent of social media.

“Because of things like Facebook and Twitter, people can criticize a whole lot more than and more publicly than they were able to before,” Byrne said. “If you get mad, you can go ahead and get on those things and say what you want to. You see that negativity and criticism in so many places, like on the polls in The Democrat. And there’s such an anti-feeling of any kind of government. I think that probably has a lot to do with one-term mayors. I was extremely fortunate to have five terms all together as mayor.”

Byrne said Natchez is home to many more Republicans today than in the years when he was an elected official.

“We have a whole lot more Republican influx than there used to be here and I think that has a lot to do with it,” he said.

Byrne is a Democrat.

“Having one-term mayors really hurts the continuity of trying to get projects completed. When you’re starting over brand new every four years, it’s tough to get things done. We see that with lots of unfinished programs, like recreation.”

Byrne said he’s already hearing talk of interest in the next mayor’s race here. However, he won’t be a candidate.

“It will be interesting to see who is going to run next year. There are lots of names being batted around out there,” he said.