PM Briceño Urges Eluide Miller to Withdraw Mayoral Candidacy
A political reshuffle may be unfolding inside the PUP’s Belize City camp, and it appears a high-level request is at the center of it. Sources say Prime Minister John Briceño has approached Deputy Mayor Eluide Miller, urging him to step aside in the race for mayor, potentially clearing the path for councilor Allan Pollard to secure the party’s endorsement. Behind the move, insiders point to Deputy Party Leader Cordel Hyde, who is believed to be revisiting a deal struck back in 2023, when Pollard reportedly agreed not to challenge Mayor Bernard Wagner. Now, with the tables turned, the pressure is on Miller, and the political stakes are even higher. News Five’s Shane Williams reports.
Shane Williams, Reporting
Campaign season often comes with predictable trends. There is silly season, snake season, and let’s make a deal season. With a party convention already in motion, the Belize City mayoral race is taking an unexpected turn. Top contender Eluide Miller is now being asked, from the highest levels, to step aside.
Collet Montejo
Collet Montejo, Secretary General, PUP
“In the case of Belize City, we’ve already informed our applicants that we are looking at a delegate convention.”
Three years after stepping aside himself, Allan Pollard is now on the opposite side of the equation. At the time, Pollard agreed to withdraw from a mayoral run after persuasion from his political mentor, Cordel Hyde, in the interest of party unity. Now, that same kind of request is being directed at Eluide Miller, who also shares close family ties to Hyde, but insiders say the political landscape has shifted, and this time, the stakes are far more complicated.
Back then, Allan Pollard was trying to unseat a sitting mayor, an uphill battle as the underdog, while Deputy Leader Cordel Hyde held firm as the political kingmaker in Belize City. Fast forward to today, and the playing field has shifted. The mayoral seat is now up for grabs, and the dynamics are very different, with new contenders, new stakes, and a lot more on the line. This time around, the balance of power inside the party is shifting, and so is the race. Eluide Miller enters as the clear frontrunner, while Cordel Hyde’s influence appears less certain, amid the rising prominence of heavyweights like Francis Fonseca and the growing clout of Anthony Mahler, Henry Charles Usher, and Kareem Musa. With a delegate convention ahead, the political landscape is more competitive and far less predictable.
Collet Montejo
“In Belize City, each constituency is allotted one delegate for every twenty-five votes that they garnered in last general elections. So that means that, these delegates will be chosen by the executive committee.”
As the numbers start to take shape ahead of the convention, the delegate math is revealing just how tight this race could be. Allan Pollard is expected to draw heavily from Lake Independence’s sizeable one hundred and ninety-two-vote bloc. But that advantage is quickly balanced out by a combined two hundred and three delegates from Freetown, Albert, Collet, and Queen Square. At the same time, Henry Charles Usher gains ground after running uncontested, while Anthony Mahler’s influence takes a hit without a challenger in 2025. Altogether, it sets up a delicate power struggle where no single bloc holds an easy edge.
Collet Montejo
“What we did, we used three past elections along with the voter turnout. So we got a – we used a formula to determine the amount of delegates that those two constituencies will be allotted.”
With most of Mahler’s delegates expected to go to Miller, the PUP mayoral race will come down to who Henry Charles Usher and Kareem Musa are supporting. Miller now has just days to respond to Prime Minister Briceño and decide whether those delegate numbers will factor into his call. Shane Williams for News Five.
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