32 Facts About Said Musa

Said Musa was the third prime minister of Belize from 28 August 1998 to 8 February 2008.

Said Wilbert Musa was born in 1944 in San Ignacio in the Cayo District of what was then British Honduras.

Said Musa was the fourth of eight children by Aurora Musa, nee Gibbs, and Hamid Musa, a Palestinian immigrant from Al-Bireh.

Hamid Musa was involved in politics, running for the British Honduras Legislative Assembly as a National Party candidate in the 1957 general elections.

Said Musa then attended high school at St Michael's College in Belize City and later St John's College Sixth Form.

Said Musa returned to Belize the following year, serving as crown counsel and then going into private practice.

Said Musa has significantly contributed to law in Belize by representing thousands of underprivileged and poor individuals who come into contact with the law.

Said Musa first came to notoriety in the late 1960s when he co-founded the Ad Hoc Committee for the Truth About Vietnam with Assad Shoman to protest the Vietnam War in British Honduras.

Said Musa joined the People's United Party under George Cadle Price in 1970.

Said Musa soon became a leader of the party's socialist wing in 1974.

Said Musa ran for the Belize House of Representatives for the first time in 1974 in the eastern Belize City-based Fort George constituency, but was narrowly defeated by United Democratic Party and Opposition Leader Dean Lindo by 46 votes.

Said Musa was appointed to the Belize Senate for the ensuing term, until 1979.

Said Musa was successful in the next general election, held in 1979, winning the Fort George seat and defeating Lindo by a margin of 71 votes.

Said Musa served on the committee that wrote the 1981 Constitution of Belize.

Said Musa regained the Fort George seat in the 1989 election, defeating Lindo again by 449 votes.

Said Musa has won the Fort George constituency in every election since.

Under Price, Said Musa was Minister of Foreign Affairs and Education from 1989 to 1993.

Said Musa is the only current Area Representative to serve in the Belize House before the country's full independence from Great Britain in September 1981.

Said Musa was elected and took over leadership of the PUP upon Price's retirement from party leadership in 1996, defeating Price's longtime lieutenant Florencio Marin in the leadership election in 1996.

Said Musa then led the PUP to landslide election victories in 1998 and 2003.

Said Musa led Belize to significant growth over his near-decade long term in office, but his popularity declined during his last years in office due in part to increasing public perception of corruption among his Cabinet and within his party.

Said Musa was accused of abandoning his previous socialist stances in favour of neoliberal policies as prime minister.

Outside of Belize Said Musa chaired several regional organisations, including CARICOM and the Central American Integration System.

Said Musa again led the PUP in the election held on 7 February 2008, but the PUP suffered a severe defeat at the hands of the UDP, led by Dean Barrow winning only six out of 31 seats.

UDP leader Dean Barrow succeeded Said Musa and was sworn in as 4th prime minister of Belize by Governor-General of Belize, Colville Young on 8 February 2008.

Said Musa considered the opposition's focus on allegations of corruption and negativity from the media to be primary factors in the defeat.

Said Musa was comfortably re-elected in his Fort George constituency and remains the senior member and shadow Senior Minister of the PUP caucus and in the Shadow Cabinet which was formed first in 2012 and then again in 2015.

In 2015 the 71-year-old Said Musa was the subject of rumours of possible retirement from public life due to health concerns and a perceived negative impact on future PUP electoral prospects nationwide.

However, Said Musa dismissed the rumours and stated his retirement from the Belize House was not imminent.

In March 2015 Said Musa told Tropical Vision Limited that he would "more than likely" run for an eighth and final term in the 2015 election, which he won.

Said Musa's son, Yasser Musa, is an artist, teacher, poet and entertainer in Belize and headed its arts council, the National Institute of Culture and History under the PUP administration in addition to serving as chief of public relations for the PUP.

In what was considered an upset, Kareem Said Musa defeated Belize City mayor and UDP nominee Darrell Bradley for the House seat in the Caribbean Shores constituency in the November 2015 election, becoming the first Belizean area representative to simultaneously serve with his father.