BELIZE CITY, Thurs. Nov. 5, 2015–After a temporary departure from the political scene in 2012, Lake Independence’s three-term area representative, Hon. Cordel Hyde, will be back in Parliament after having delivered a crushing defeat to Mark King of the United Democratic Party, who in August had threatened to “get rid” of Hyde, his father and brother as well as their family business – Kremandala.
When voters went to the polls this March for the 2015 municipal elections, Cordel had delivered more blue votes for his party than the red votes which King delivered for his, signaling that Hyde was stronger in Lake I than King.
That was proven on Wednesday, November 4, when 4,368 voters (69% of registered electors) went to the polls and Hyde was elected to his fourth term of office with the widest margin ever for a Lake I contender.
Hyde said, it’s been a while but he is looking forward to representing the people of Lake I in Parliament. As for the key to his latest victory, Hyde says that it’s as simple as keeping it real.
Hyde captured nearly three-fourth of the votes, beating his own record of 68% of votes, which he recorded when he first ran under the PUP banner in 1998.
King got the lowest portion of votes in the 2015 general election of any candidate who has ever run for Lake I, and he received far less votes this time than he did back in 2012.
When the final results were released, it was revealed that Hyde had garnered 3,124 votes, while King had garnered only 1,125 votes. There were 56 rejected ballots, but 63 had cast their votes for third party candidate, Richard McCaulay.
Of note is that King snagged 419 votes less than he did last time, although more than 1,000 persons were added by his government to the register for Lake I.
Hyde was the third most popular candidate in Wednesday’s vote. He was right behind Mesopotamia’s Michael Finnegan of the UDP, who topped the polls with over 80% of the votes in his constituency in 2012.
UDP leader Hon. Dean Barrow garnered the highest percentage of votes this time around, netting 78% of votes cast.