Caribbean & Central America - October 2011 (ISSN 1741-4458)

There is a saying that a country gets the government it deserves, but in the case of Honduras that surely can’t hold.  Of the young Central American democracies, few have endured such inadequate, self-serving administrations. Since the return to civilian rule in 1979, followed by general elections in 1981, Honduras has had eight (democratically elected) presidents, not one of which has managed to reduce the rate of poverty below 50% of the 8.0m-strong population. In 2011, poverty is still estimated at a shocking 60%-65%. The country also suffers the ignominy of having one of the world’s highest homicide rates, which on year-to-date figures may reach a new record of 86 per 100,000 in 2011, according to the National Commission for Human Rights (CONADEH). This grim scenario is rounded off by a patchy, highly US-dependent economic performance.

Honduras has struggled to shed its reputation as one of the last of the banana republics, closely ruled by a small and well-entrenched US-facing oligarchy. However the June 2009 coup d’état has left an indelible mark and one notable outcome is the fragmentation of the domestic political scene. Hondurans long used to alternating between two conservative traditional parties (with little to differentiate between them), may have the novelty of new options on the ballot paper in the scheduled November 2013 election.

President Porfirio Lobo is not quite halfway through his single four year-term but his ruling Partido Nacional (PL) recently split down the middle into two factions, led by rival aspirants to succeed him in 2014. The other main traditional group, the Partido Liberal (PL), has more or less fallen apart since the coup against its former president, Manuel Zelaya (2006-2009). Zelaya has since formed a new outfit with the remnants of his supporters from the PL, leaving his old party in tatters.

Lobo has allowed the polarizing Zelaya to pursue his political ambitions, ostensibly in support of national political reconciliation. Tactically though, Lobo also likely calculated that he could divide and rule a splintered opposition and thereby secure re-election for the PN in 2014. With the sudden cracks emerging in the PN, that no longer looks assured. Moreover, Lobo needs to watch out both on his Left and also on his (far) Right, where former coupsters and their supporters are also readying their ambitions - most notably these include the former head of the army, Romeo Vázquez Velázquez (see sidebar).

Following the surprise removal (early on 10 September) of his security and foreign ministers, Oscar Alvarez and Mario Canahauti respectively, both of the PN, Lobo formally gave his backing to the president of congress, Juan Orlando Hernández, as his preferred successor. Party primaries will take place in November 2012, a year ahead of the general election.

Although the (semi) official line was that Alvarez had gone behind Lobo’s back in his efforts to crack down on police corruption, it was also assumed that the high profile minister may have had ambitions for 2013 that clashed with those of Juan Orlando Hernández. As did the also-removed foreign minister.

Not everyone in the party was happy with Lobo’s actions. Ricardo Alvarez, the PN party president and mayor of Tegucigalpa, questioned the removals and voiced his respectful disagreement with Lobo. Alvarez is another potential aspirant for 2013. Along with Miguel Pastór, the minister for public works, transport and housing, Alvarez has now moved to form a 23-member PN faction in congress to rival Hernández and his supporters.  Known as the Alianza Parliamentaria, it includes several of the recently ousted ministers/officials and the influential PN deputy, Antonio Rivera Callejas, who admitted to the daily La Tribuna that the breakaway group is a pre-electoral alliance in support of Alvarez/Pastor.

In the November 2009 elections, the PN took 71 of the 128 seats in congress (and 17 of the country’s 18 departments), giving it a comfortable majority. Hernández still commands a group of 48 PN deputies, but he can no longer summon an automatic majority. That means that the government’s legislative agenda, such as it is, could stall moving forward.

Free to run

Manuel Zelaya has asked the national electoral court to register ‘Libertad y Refundación’ (or ‘Libre’) as the name of his 2013 electoral vehicle. Libre will be the political arm of Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular (FNRP), the trade-union led radical left-wing social movement that formed in support of Zelaya after his ouster. Earlier this year the FNRP incorporated some former PL members to become the Frente Amplio Politico Electoral de Resistencia (FAPER).  Zelaya cannot run again and so will have to field a proxy in 2013, potentially his wife Xiomara Castro, who earned her political stripes at the helm of the efforts to return home her exiled husband.  Libre’s manifesto centres on Zelaya’s continued demand for a constituent assembly.

• Vázquez Velázquez

Early on 28 June 2009 Romeo Vázquez Velázquez, the head of the army, had his men remove the president Manuel Zelaya and spirit him out of the county. Vázquez Velázquez said he was following supreme court orders to detain Zelaya (though apparently he personally took the fateful decision to bundle Zelaya off to Costa Rica). In March 2010 he was shuffled out of the military ranks by President Lobo, who compensated him with a juicy retirement post at the helm of the state telecoms firm, Hondutel. He proposes running in 2013 under the banner of the Alianza Patriótica Hondureña (APH), which describes itself as a “military-civic” organisation.