In the last years, Honduras has had six Liberal presidents: Roberto Suazo Córdova, José Azcona del Hoyo, Carlos Roberto Reina, Carlos Roberto Flores, Manuel Zelaya and Roberto Micheletti; and three Nationalists: Rafael Leonardo Callejas Romero, Ricardo Maduro and Porfirio Lobo Sosa.
The elections have been full of controversies, including questions about whether Azcona was born in Spain, and whether Maduro should have been able to stand, given he was born in Panama.
In 1963, a military coup was mounted against the democratically elected president Ramón Villeda Morales. This event started a string of Military Governments which held power almost uninterrupted until 1981 when Suazo Córdova (LPH) was elected president and Honduras changed from a military authoritarian regime.
In 1986, there were five Liberal candidates and four Nationalists running for president. Because no one candidate obtained a clear majority, the so-called “Formula B” was invoked and Azcona del Hoyo became president.
In 1990, Callejas won the election under the slogan “Llegó el momento del Cambio” (English: “The time for change has arrived”), which was heavily criticized for resembling El Salvador’s “ARENAs” political campaign. Once in office, Callejas Romero gained a reputation for illicit enrichment, and has been the subject of several scandals and accusations.
It was during Flores Facusse’s mandate that Hurricane Mitch hit the country and decades of economic growth were eradicated in less than a week.
Government ministries are often incapable of carrying out their mandate due to budgetary constraints. In an interview with Rodolfo Pastor Fasquelle, Minister of Sports & Culture and one of three ‘super ministers’ responsible for coordinating the ministries related to public services (security and economic being the other two), published in Honduras on 31 July 2006, it was related that 94% of the department budget was spent on bureaucracy and only 6% went to support activities and organizations covered by the mandate. Wages within that ministry were identified as the largest budget consumer.
President Maduro’s administration “de-nationalized” the telecommunications sector in a move to promote the rapid diffusion of these services to the Honduran population. As of November 2005, there were around 10 private-sector telecommunications companies in the Honduran market, including two mobile phone companies. As of mid 2007, the issue of tele-communications continues to be very damaging to the current government.
The country’s main newspapers are La Prensa, El Heraldo, La Tribuna and Diario Tiempo. The official newspaper is La Gaceta.
A Presidential and General Election was held on 27 November 2005. Manuel Zelaya of the Liberal Party of Honduras (Partido Liberal de Honduras: PLH) won, with Porfirio Pepe Lobo of the National Party of Honduras (Partido Nacional de Honduras: PNH) coming in second. The PNH challenged the election results, and Lobo Sosa did not concede until 7 December.
Towards the end of December, the government finally released the total ballot count, giving Zelaya the official victory. Zelaya was inaugurated as Honduras’ new president on 27 January 2006.
Zelaya precipitated a national crisis by trying to hold a non-binding national referendum to ask the Honduran people: “Do you agree that, during the general elections of November 2009 there should be a fourth ballot to decide whether to hold a Constituent National Assembly that will approve a new political constitution?”
This possible Assembly then might have proposed constitutional changes to term-limits — as the military and the Supreme Court deemed possible — and other, more likely, unrelated and legal constitutional changes.
2009 Honduran Constitutional Crisis
The 2009 Honduran constitutional crisis resulted in a coup d’état that lasted from 28 June 2009 to 27 January 2010.
President Manuel Zelaya attempted to hold a “non-binding referendum” on the 28 June asking voters if the upcoming November elections should include an additional ballot box. The ballot box would ask if the Honduran people wished to form a Constitutional Assembly in the term of the newly elected president.
The Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling that found a prior referendum based on the same issue unconstitutional and prohibited it.
Referendum
Zelaya ignored the Supreme Court and decided to proceed on the referendum, basing his decision on the Law of Citizen Participation, passed in 2006. Zelaya dismissed the head of the military command, General Romeo Vásquez Velásquez, for disobeying an order to hold the poll, but the Supreme Court ordered his reinstatement.
The Supreme Court then ordered the military (who as a non-civilian force had no jurisdiction over the matter) to detain Zelaya. The vote on the referendum was scheduled for 28 June 2009. In the early morning on that day, the army arrested Zelaya at his home.
Zelaya was held in a U.S. airbase outside Tegucigalpa before being forcibly sent to San José, Costa Rica. Zelaya attempted reentry into the country on several occasions. According to the constitution, it is illegal to expatriate any Honduran citizen.
Roberto Micheletti, the former President of the Honduran Congress and a member of the same party as Zelaya, was sworn in as President by the National Congress on the afternoon of Sunday 28 June for a term that ended on 27 January 2010.
No country recognised the de facto government as legitimate; all members of the UN condemned the removal of Zelaya as a coup d’état. Some Republican Party members of the U.S. Congress voiced support at the time for the new government.
On 21 September 2009, Zelaya returned to Honduras and entered the Brazilian embassy. From its roof, he attempted to incite his supporters in a rebellion. The government disrupted utility services to the embassy and imposed a curfew in an attempt to maintain order in the area when Zelaya’s supporters protested around the embassy.
The following day, in Decree PCM-M-016-2009, the government suspended five Constitutional rights: personal liberty (Article 69), freedom of expression (Article 72), freedom of movement (Article 81), habeas corpus (Article 84) and freedom of association and assembly. It closed a leftist radio and a television station.
The decree suspending human rights was officially revoked on 19 October 2009 in La Gaceta.
The 2009 Election
The general election for President of the Republic of Honduras was won by the candidate of the National Party of Honduras, Mr. Porfirio Lobo Sosa. Under a tense state of political turmoil and ongoing coup, the 29 November 2009 election was won by Sosa over his opponent, the candidate of the Liberal Party of Honduras, civil engineer Elvin Ernesto Santos Ordoñez.
Porfirio Lobo Sosa, was sworn in office as president in 2010 and declared its tasks to be to bring order to the country and reapply for acceptance of Honduras within the OAS.