section_path: Overview
section_name: Overview
paragraph_text: Overview
  
  The PUP was founded in 1950 out of the Nationalist Movement, as an anti-colonial party while the country was ruled by the United Kingdom as British Honduras. Under George Cadle Price the PUP played a major role in negotiating Belize's self-government in 1964 and eventual independence in 1981. The PUP dominated local British Honduran and later Belizean politics from the mid-1950s until 1984, when it lost to the centre-right opposition United Democratic Party (UDP). The UDP has been the party's main opposition since the early 1970s. Under Price's leadership, the PUP returned to power in 1989 but was defeated by the UDP again in 1993.
  
  After Price's retirement in 1996, the PUP won a landslide victory in 1998 under the leadership of Said Musa. The PUP won 22 of the 29 seats in the House of Representatives in 2003. It subsequently held 21 seats after losing one to the UDP in a by-election in October 2003 after the death of one of its House members.
  
  After nearly 10 years in power under Musa the PUP decisively lost the February 2008 election to the UDP, winning only six out of 31 seats. The party remained in opposition after the 2012 election, in which it gained 8 seats but was narrowly defeated by the UDP, and then lost 2 seats in the 2015 election. In the 2020 elections they won an overwhelming victory, gaining 14 seats and winning in almost all local councils. They maintained their majority of 26 seats in the 2025 election.