Johnny Briceño

Briceño was born in Orange Walk Town on 17 July 1960.[2] His father, Elijio Joe Briceño (1938–2016), was Chairman of the Belize Sugar Cane Farmers Association, and later served as the Minister of Energy and Communications.[3]

Briceño graduated from Muffles College in 1978.[4] He earned an associate degree in business administration from St. John's College in 1980, and a bachelor's degree in business administration from the University of Texas at Austin in 1985.[2]

In 1990, Briceño and his brother Jaime[5] founded Centaur Communications, a cable television provider which later branched out into Internet service, television news, and radio.[6]

Briceño was first elected to the Belize House of Representatives from the Orange Walk Central constituency in 1993;[7] in 1994 he successfully ran in the town council elections of Orange Walk Town.[2]

In 1994, Briceño was elected Co-Chairman of the People's United Party;[2] in 1996, he was elected Deputy Party Leader.[8] When the PUP won the 1998 elections, Briceño was appointed as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Natural Resources and the Environment.[2]

In August 2004 he led a group of ministers, known as the G-7 alliance, who made a number of reform demands, including the dismissal of Ralph Fonseca from the Cabinet. When Prime Minister Said Musa failed to meet these demands, the group resigned; however, Musa subsequently agreed to all of the demands except for the dismissal of Fonseca and the G-7 ministers remained in the Cabinet.[9] Briceño also gained an additional portfolio, the Ministry of Finance.[2] Briceño was later one of the ministers who opposed Musa's proposal to settle the country's Universal Health Services debt; as a result of this, Musa attempted to demote Briceño from his position as Deputy Prime Minister, but Briceño refused to accept the lesser posts in the Cabinet that he was offered and instead resigned from the Cabinet on 5 June 2007.[9]

At a national convention of the PUP in July 2007, Briceño was re-elected as one of the party's deputy leaders.[10] In the February 2008 general election, in which the PUP was defeated, Briceño was re-elected in his constituency of Orange Walk Central; he was one of only six successful PUP candidates.[11]

On 30 March 2008, Briceño was elected as the leader of the PUP at a party convention in Belmopan, succeeding Musa. He defeated Francis Fonseca, who was considered to be the candidate preferred by the party establishment, receiving 330 votes against 310 for Fonseca.[12]

Citing unspecified health issues, Briceño abruptly resigned as both PUP and opposition leader in October 2011 without leading the party in a general election. He retained his seat in the National Assembly.[13] He was succeeded in both leadership positions by Fonseca.[14]

On 11 November 2020, the People's United Party, led by Briceño, won government in the 2020 general election, defeating the United Democratic Party, led by Patrick Faber. He took office as Prime Minister of Belize on 12 November 2020. He is the first Prime Minister who is not from Belize City.[16]

Briceño and his wife Rossana (a 1986 graduate of Muffles College)[4] have three sons.[2] On 24 November 2020, two weeks after starting his term as Prime Minister, he declared he was diagnosed with COVID-19 and was doing well.[24]

• belize.gov.bz biography