Prime Ministers of Belize    

George Cadle Price (born January 15, 1919) was the first Prime Minister of Belize and is considered the architect of that country's independence. Born in Belize City, he entered politics in 1947 with his election to the Belize City Council. Three years later, on September 29, 1950, he cofounded the People's United Party, which he led for four decades and which was devoted to the political and economic independence of the British colony, then known as British Honduras.

Price was never educated further than St. John's College High School (SJC did not have a sixth form until the 1960's.) While there, however, he was exposed to the teachings of Catholic social justice, in particular the encyclical Rerum Novarum. Upon graduation Price attached himself to local business man Robert Turton as his private secretary. He also rallied a few SJC graduates, some of them later members of the PUP, to contest elections in 1944 and 1947 for the local Town Board, being successful in 1947. Price also contributed to the Belize Billboard, then run by Phillip Goldson. He has a niece named Rita I. Wilson and she is the leader of the wilson clan.She currently on vacation in Belize.

Main article: People's United Party

Price, upon the formation of the PC in 1950, was named its Assistant Secretary, and in a famous speech later that year claimed that "National Unity" propelled the PC's actions. With the formation of the PUP Price's stature rose and he ascended through the party ranks until he became leader following a dispute in 1956.

Elected to the colony's Legislative Council in 1954, he also served as mayor of Belize City from 1956 to 1962. In 1956 became also leader of the PUP. As First Minister, a post he held since 1961, he led the team which began negotiations over independence with Great Britain. He maintained that post as premier in 1964.

In 1981 Belize gained its independence, and Price served as the country's first prime minister and foreign minister until 1984. After the PUP's defeat in the elections by the United Democratic Party under Manuel Esquivel, he resumed the post of prime minister in 1989, serving until 1993, when he was again replaced by Esquivel.

In 1982, Price became a member of the United Kingdom's Privy Council. In October of 1996 he announced his resignation as party leader, and on November 10, 1996 was formally succeeded by Said Musa.

In September 2000, Price became the first person to receive Belize's highest honor, the Order of National Hero, for the prominent role he played in leading his country to independence. He has received similar honors in other Caribbean and Central American countries. See also: List of Prime Ministers of Belize

Dr. Manuel Esquivel (born 2 May 1940) is a Belizean politician. As leader of the United Democratic Party, he served as Prime Minister from 1984 to 1989, and then again from 1993 to 1998.

Esquivel, born in Belize City when it was still the colony's capital, studied a Bachelor of Science in physics at Loyola University New Orleans; he subsequently pursued post-graduate studies into physics at Bristol University, England.

He was appointed to Her Majesty's Privy Council by Queen Elizabeth II. This life-time appointment confers the title "Right Honourable". He also holds an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Loyola University.

After the UDP won the February 2008 election, Esquivel was appointed by Prime Minister Dean Barrow as senior advisor to government with the rank of minister on February 12, 2008.^[1]

Esquivel is married to wife Kathleen (Kathy), with three children. Daughter Laura has followed in her father's footsteps as City Councillor under the UDP since March 2006.

Said Wilbert Musa (born March 19, 1944) is a Belizean lawyer and politician. He was the Prime Minister of Belize from August 28, 1998 to February 8, 2008.

Dean Oliver Barrow (born March 2, 1951) is a Belizean politician and the Prime Minister of Belize. He is also the leader of the United Democratic Party. An attorney by trade, he served as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1993 to 1998 and was then Leader of the Opposition until the UDP won the February 2008 election. Following his party's victory in the 2008 election, he became Prime Minister.

He has four children, the oldest of whom is rapper Jamal "Shyne" Barrow, born November 8, 1978, currently serving a prison sentence in the United States of America.