Shyne Loses Re-Election Bid in Belize: ‘The People Have Spoken’

Shyne has lost his bid for re-election in Belize. The former Bad Boy conceded defeat in a press conference on Wednesday night (March 12).

According to Channel 5 Belize, Shyne (born Moses Barrow) was unseated by fellow United Democratic Party member and businessman Lee Mark Chang in the general election.

Shyne was elected to the Mesopotamia seat in Belize City for the House of Representatives in 2020, and he eventually served as the Leader of the Opposition in the House of Representatives and the leader of the Belize United Democratic Party.

According to Channel 5 Belize, Shyne secured only 318 votes in the constituency of Mesopotamia, while Chang earned 601.

“The people have spoken. Congratulations to Lee Mark Chang — he’s now the new area representative of Mesopotamia, and I wish him well,” Shyne said, according to the local news outlet. “I was confident; that was the interaction I was having with the people, but they made a decision to go in another direction, and I respect that.”

With Shyne losing his House of Representatives seat, he’s planning to resign as the leader of the Belize UDP once a new official is elected.

“I certainly will resign effective once we have a national convention to elect a new leader,” he added. “Obviously you can’t be a leader of the United Democratic Party once you’re not a member of the House, and I would not want to be appointed as a senator or anything to hold on to the leadership.”

Chang was very critical of Shyne leading up to the election, reportedly referring to him as a “cancer” in the government. “The people are realizing they have been bamboozled,” he reportedly said on national TV in Belize.

It’s unclear if the loss marks the end of Shyne’s run in Belizean politics.

Shyne rose to fame in the late ’90s as a rapper under Diddy’s Bad Boy Records label. He was sentenced to 10 years behind bars in 2001 on assault, gun possession and reckless endangerment charges for his role in a 1999 NYC nightclub shooting that left two people wounded. He was released in 2009 after eight years behind bars and deported to Belize.