Honduras by Nick Youngson CC BY-SA 3.0 Alpha Stock Images / Picserver.org / Creative Commons

By Eugenio Sosa*

Honduras’s long-running political crisis and the realignment of its political parties have given rise to broad discussion of political and electoral reforms, but resistance from the political parties – including the relatively new Libertad y Refundación (LIBRE) Party – appears likely to stymie significant change.  Honduran civil society groups increasingly believe that only through political and electoral reforms will the country move toward democracy.  Holding elections is an important starting point, reform advocates say, but deepening democracy requires reducing the monopoly of the political parties.  The configuration of the parties has changed significantly since the coup d’état in June 2009; the century-old “bipartisanship” of the National and Liberal Parties has been shaken up and become more volatile.  LIBRE has moved to the front line, and smaller players, like the Partido Anticorrupción (PAC), have faded.  Reformers argue that this realignment affords the country an opportunity to undertake reforms that cut across the country’s institutions and processes.

• Depoliticizing the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) and making it a truly independent and autonomous body to supervise elections. The current TSE has fallen far short of its legal requirements to ensure, without prejudice, to enfranchise all citizens. 
• Professionalizing and depoliticizing the National Registry of Persons – removing the partisan activists who dominate it today and directing it to issue identification cards without political influence. Observers agree that 30 percent of voters on the current lists have deceased or left the country.  Other citizens’ names have been mysteriously dropped from voter rolls or been lost while changing domicile.  Similarly, the country needs a complete, honest census.
• Allowing regular citizens to staff election tables in polling places. They should be chosen based on clear criteria, such as their contributions to society.  In 2013 and 2017, credentials were being bought and sold with party funds, totally undermining observers’ credibility.
• Establishing second round balloting when no candidate wins an absolute majority. The country’s shift away from a two-party system has significantly increased the chance that a president would be elected with a percentage of votes below the abstention rate.  A runoff between the top two candidates will give the victor greater legitimacy.

Other important reforms are receiving less attention.  Laws on transparency and accountability in campaign finances, such as the Law on Clean Politics implemented in 2017, have not had significant results so far, but discussion of ways to give them teeth has been limited.  Neither is there much talk about how the incumbent candidate benefits from access to public resources, including access to the national networks, or about the biases of privately owned media, which slant coverage and charge different rates for advertising depending on their preferences.  Guarantees of political participation by sectors traditionally excluded from representation and government, such as women, the indigenous, and youth, are also largely off the table.

The urgency for reform, obvious since the coup in June 2009, has surged since the contested elections in November 2017, during which the Constitutional Court decided in favor of the reelection of President Juan Orlando Hernández in the face of evidence of electoral fraud.  Honduras is now living the paradox of a President serving a second term that is still prohibited by the Constitution.  Some issues, such as re-election, demand serious national debate and may have to be resolved by plebiscite or through a National Constituent Assembly.

• Despite the broad base of the organizations proposing reforms, the success of any initiatives will depend on the views, limitations, and vetoes imposed by the three main parties. Even LIBRE, the newcomer that previously challenged the status quo, sometimes appears to be buying into existing systems and could go soft on reform.  As a result, one possible outcome could be that certain reforms are implemented in form – such as modernization of the National Registry of Persons – but the parties retain their influence over the office’s magistrates and personnel.  In addition, neither of the three main political forces appears interested in allowing authentic citizen control over voting tables on election day. 
• While the need for reform is arguably deeper than at any time since the current Constitution was approved in 1982, and while the proposals for moving forward are constructive and mature, the prospects for change appear limited. The configuration of the country’s political parties has changed, but their priorities and behavior have not. 

January 22, 2019

*Eugenio Sosa is a sociologist and senior analyst at the Centro de Estudio para la Democracia (CESPAD), in Tegucigalpa.  This article is adapted from his essay on the CESPAD website.