Approval ratings- Belmopan

The views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not necessarily those of Breaking Belize News.

Dr. Philip Castillo –   Castillo Poll # 2 of 2026

Created in 1984, the Belmopan Constituency rapidly mushroomed and most recent data indicate that, powered by a surge in new registration, Belmopan, with marginally less than 15,000 voters, is now by far the largest electoral constituency in Belize. It is the only constituency where at the municipal and the general elections levels, the geographic area and hence the voters are the very same. Another peculiarity about Belmopan is the existence of a statutory entity, Reconstruction & Development Corporation  (RECONDEV). Originally constituted to serve as the municipal authority for the newly created capital city, RECONDEV continues to exist in parallel with the elected City Council in Belmopan. This entity now remains largely the personal fiefdom of whoever is the Area Representative. It is tasked mainly with dealing with land issues whereas the elected City Council performs all the multiple other remaining duties and obligations of a municipal authority.

APPROVAL RATING – MAYOR MR. PABLO CAWICH

Mr. Pablo Cawich is the PUP Mayor of Belmopan. He was first elected in 2024. He replaced another PUP City Council 2021 – 2024 headed by Mayor Sheron Palacio.  Only one of outgoing Mayor Palacio’s councilors was on the slate of new Mayor Cawich The events surrounding Ms. Palacio’s replacement by Mr. Cawich indicated that the PUP were themselves having internal strife. However those events paled in comparison to the UDP’s more headline grabbing and entertaining internal issues.  

Mayor Cawich has served two years out of his three year term as municipal elections are set for exactly one year away in March 2027.

Taking all things into consideration, do you approve of the job that Mr. Pablo Cawich is doing as the Mayor of Belmopan?

Mr. Cawich won in 2024 with 56% percent of the votes.  As noted by his approval rating above, his net positive approval rating is a mere 5.3%, and a sizeable minority of one in every five respondents opted not to respond. Concerns noted included a rise in trade licenses, calls for the municipal authorities to “deal with” the increasing number of the mentally ill and homeless persons in the vicinity of the main market area, and his apparent failure thus far to keep a campaign promise to construct a market in the Maya Mopan area. The Mayor was credited with, among other initiatives, creating and maintaining outdoor family friendly spaces, expanding the Night Market and encouraging diversified entrepreneurship.

At this time, Mr. Cawich’s likely UDP opponent remains unknown.

APPROVAL RATING – AREA REPRESENTATIVE MR. OSCAR MIRA

Mr. Oscar Mira is the two time Area Representative of Belmopan. He first defeated Mr. John Saldivar in 2020 with 60% of the votes to Mr. Saldivar’s 29%. The remaining 10% was for an independent candidate Anna Guy, who had left the UDP to run as an Independent. Mr. Mira again defeated Mr. Saldivar in 2025 with an even larger voter percentage.

In the years between 2020 and 2025, Mr. Saldivar’s political fortunes varied diametrically.  Though he was defeated in the 2020 elections, Mr. Saldivar remained a potent force in the UDP.  He had won a UDP national convention to replace retiring Party Leader and Prime Minister Mr. Dean Barrow. He was forced to resign when questioned in Cabinet, he misremembered the sources of his financing. His political outlook further plummeted when the United States State Department designated him to be involved in “significant corruption.”

With the election of Mr. Shyne Barrow, son of former Prime Minister Dean Barrow to UDP Opposition Leader, the schism within the party erupted, with Messrs. Shyne and Saldivar being in opposite camps. However, a détente was reached which allowed the UDP to hold a  constituency convention to choose the standard Bearer for Belmopan in the 2025 General Election and for Mr. Saldivar to participate as a candidate.  Castillo Poll had predicted Mr. Saldivar winning that convention. https://www.7newsbelize.com/sstory.php?nid=64945&frmsrch=1

All the above was public information when Mr. Saldivar again faced the general electorate in 2025 and was similarly defeated, this time by a larger percentage.  Recall Mr. Mira had defeated Mr. Saldivar 60% to 29%, with the remaining 10% going to an independent candidate? In the 2025 rematch, Mr. Mira’s percentage increased to 65%, while Mr. Saldivar remained at 29%. The remaining 5% were divided between the other UDP candidate on the ballot and spoilt votes.

With 60% of its voters voting for him in 2020 and 65% in 2025, Mr. Mira is the undisputed powerbroker in Belmopan. He is one year into his second term in office.

Taking all things into consideration, do you approve of the job that Mr. Oscar Mira is doing as the Area Representative of Belmopan?

The poll revealed that a significant 67.5 percent of the Belmopan voters approve of the job that Mr. Mira is doing. This percentage can be benchmarked to the 65% he won exactly one year ago. Mr. Mira’s opponent in the General Elections will be Belmopan Constituency Caretaker Mr. Khalid Belisle, who had served consecutive terms 2015 to 2018 and 2018 to 2021 as Mayor of Belmopan.

APPROVAL RATING – PRIME MINISTER MR. JOHN BRICENO

Taking all things into consideration, do you approve of the job that Mr. John Briceno is doing as the Prime Minister of Belize?

The Prime Minister’s approval rating in Belmopan is marginally less than 40% and his net positive approval rating is 14.6%. Accounting for the margin of error, the Prime Minister’s approval rating is similar to the approval rating of Mayor Cawich, but notably less than the approval rating of Area Representative Mira. And this may be largely attributable to Mr. Mira’s control of RECONDEV.

Belmopan as a constituency has dual features of a modern urban capital city and simultaneously a rural enclave, where residents rear poultry and other animals in their yards and despite organized garbage collection, there are still many unauthorized garbage disposal sites. Pit latrines are visible in the eastern fringes of the constituency  where its newer residents demonstrate gratitude and patience. They are most grateful for their own plot of land and they are patient to understand that better roads and utilities, perhaps not yet accessible,  will reach them sooner rather than later.  These newer residents, many not initially Belizean, have become naturalized and their children/grandchildren are born Belizeans. Their gratitude and patience is manifested in generational political support. And Mr. Mira is the main beneficiary of this support far more than the Mayor and the Prime Minister.

But all three PUP leaders are also beneficiaries of the overall sense of comparative satisfaction that Belmopan residents currently possess. In all the ways that the official statistical agency, the Statistical Institute of Belize,  measures national economic indicators of wellbeing  – Consumer Confidence, Unemployment, Multidimensional Poverty and Cost of Living –  the Cayo District including Belmopan – when available data are disaggregated to the urban level – rank above national averages, and in many instances, substantially so.

Consumer Confidence Index (January 2026): National Average 48.3%,    Cayo District 48.4% https://sib.org.bz/wp-content/uploads/CCI_2026-01.pdf

Multidimensional Poverty Index (December 2025): National Average 19.1%, Cayo District 15.7%   file:///C:/Users/drphi/Downloads/MPI_2025-09%20(1).pdf

Unemployment (September 2025): National Average 1.9%;  Cayo District 0.8%

Cost of Living (January 2026): National Annual Inflation Rate for 2025 1.1%; Belmopan 0.5%

Finally, in Dangriga, the approval rating of the Prime Minister was 21% (Castillo Poll # 1 of 2026). In Belmopan, Mr. Briceno’s approval rating is substantially higher at 39.1%. Polling is an inexact science that seeks to capture opinions at a specific point in time.  Poll results can only be generalized to the population from which they were drawn. Based on the above, neither my poll in Dangriga nor this poll in Belmopan can unveil data that are indicative of larger trends. All  I can say from these two polls is that in January 2026, the approval rating of the Prime Minister in Dangriga was 21%. And in March 2026, the approval rating of the Prime Minister in Belmopan was 39.1%. And I can say so with a degree of confidence that was above 90% in both instances.

Methodology

The Belmopan Constituency has 14,544 voters, divided into four areas. Methodology involved proportional random sampling from these four areas. The sample size was 379 voters and this equated to a margin of error of +/- 4.97% at the 95% degree of confidence.

Source: Elections & Boundaries Dept, Belmopan. Calculations by the author.

Peace.

The post Approval ratings- Belmopan appeared first on Belize News and Opinion on www.breakingbelizenews.com.

The views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not necessarily those of Breaking Belize News. Dr. Philip Castillo –   Castillo Poll # 2 of 2026 Created in 1984, the Belmopan Constituency rapidly mushroomed and most recent data indicate that, powered by a surge in new registration, Belmopan, with marginally less than
The post Approval ratings- Belmopan appeared first on Belize News and Opinion on www.breakingbelizenews.com.