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Honduras Local Government
Honduras is administratively divided into eighteen
departments
(Atlántida, Choluteca, Colón, Comayagua, Copán, Cortés, El
Paraíso,
Francisco Morazán, Gracias a Dios, Intibucá, Islas de la
Bahía (Bay
Islands), La Paz, Lempira, Ocotepeque, Olancho, Santa
Bárbara,
Valle, and Yoro), each with a designated department
capital
(cabecera). The president of the republic freely
appoints,
and may freely remove, governors for each department.
Departmental
governors represent the executive branch in official acts
in their
department and serve as the tie between the executive
branch and
other national agencies and institutions that might have
delegations working in the department. Each governor may
freely
appoint and remove a secretary to assist him or her. If a
governor
is absent more than five days, the mayor of the
departmental
capital substitutes for the governor. The costs of running
the
departmental governments fall under the budget of the
Ministry of
Government and Justice.
The departments are further divided into 291
municipalities
(municipios) nationwide, including a Central
District
consisting of the cities of Tegucigalpa and Comayagüela. A
municipality in Honduras may include more than one city
within its
boundaries, and is therefore similar to the jurisdiction
of county
in the United States. In addition to cities,
municipalities may
also include aldeas (villages) and caseríos
(hamlets), which are scattered concentrations of
populations
outside urban areas. The urbanized cities may be divided
into
smaller divisions known as colonias (colonies) and
barrios
(neighborhoods).
The municipalities are administered by elected
corporations,
deliberative organs that are accountable to the courts of
justice
for abuses, and are supposed to be autonomous or
independent of the
central government's powers. The municipal corporations
consist of
a mayor (alcalde), who is the paramount executive
authority
in a municipality, and a municipal council that varies in
size
depending on the population of the municipality. Those
municipalities with a population of less than 5,000 have
four
council members, those with a population of between 5,000
and
10,000 have six, and those with a population between
10,000 and
80,000 have eight. All the department capitals, regardless
of their
population, and municipalities with a population of more
than
80,000 have ten council members.
The municipal corporations meet at least two times per
month in
ordinary sessions, but special sessions may be called by
the mayor
or by at least two council members. Each municipal
corporation has
a secretary, freely appointed and removed by a majority of
the
members of the corporation, and a treasurer, named by the
corporation at the request of the mayor. Municipalities
with annual
revenue of more than one million lempiras (L; for value of
the
lempira--see Glossary)
are to have an auditor named by the
municipal corporation; however, in the early 1990s, the
majority of
Honduran municipalities had an annual revenue of less than
one
million lempiras.
The constitution sets forth several provisions
regarding the
municipalities. According to Article 299, the economic and
social
development of the municipalities must form part of the
nation's
development plans. Each municipality is also to have
sufficient
communal land in order to ensure its existence and
development.
Citizens of municipalities are entitled to form civic
associations,
federations, or confederations in order to ensure the
improvement
and development of the municipalities. In general, income
and
investment taxes in a municipality are paid into the
municipal
treasury.
In 1990 a new Law of Municipalities covering both
departmental
and municipal administration superseded the previous
municipal law
issued in 1927. The new law set forth the numerous rights
and
responsibilities of the municipalities and public
administration at
the municipal level. It also outlined the concept of
municipal
autonomy, characterized by free elections; free public
administration and decisions; the collection and
investment of
resources with special attention on the preservation of
the
environment; the development, approval, and administration
of a
municipal budget; the organization and management of
public
services; the right of the municipality to create its own
administrative structure; and municipal control over
natural
resources. The law also outlines twenty-one functions of
the
municipal corporations, which include the following
responsibilities: organizing public administration and
services,
developing and implementing a municipal budget, appointing
public
employees and naming needed public commissions, planning
urban
development, and consulting the public through plebiscites
on
important municipal issues and through open public
meetings with
representatives of the various social sectors of the
municipality.
Under the law, each municipality has a Municipal
Development
Council named by the corporation and consisting of
representatives
of the various economic and social sectors of the
municipality. The
Municipal Development Council functions in an advisory
capacity by
providing the corporations with information and input for
making
decisions. The law also calls for a special law to be
enacted to
regulate the organization and functioning of a national
Institute
of Municipal Development to promote the integrated
development of
municipalities in Honduras.
Traditionally, the central government in Honduras,
whether
civilian or military, has dominated local government, and
some
observers maintain that local mayors and municipal
corporations
have served largely as administrative arms of the central
government. With the return to democratic rule in 1982,
however,
there has been a shift, at least in theory, to promote the
economic
development and political independence of the
municipalities. New
provisions in the 1982 constitution call for economic and
social
development in the municipalities to form parts of
national
development programs and outline the right of citizens to
form
organizations to ensure the improvement and development of
the
municipalities.
The Callejas government emphasized support for
political and
administrative decentralization from the executive branch
to the
municipalities. In fact, one of the objectives in
establishing the
Modernization of the State Commission in 1990 was to
reduce the
centralism of the executive branch through the effective
and
orderly transfer of functions and resources to the
municipalities
in order to fortify their autonomy. The promulgation of
the new Law
of Municipalities in 1990 was further evidence of the
Callejas
government's emphasis on municipal development. Observers
noted,
however, that the executive branch, particularly through
the
decentralized agencies and institutions, still wielded
significant
power at the local level in the early 1990s.
One significant measure approved in 1992 was reform of
the
nation's electoral law for the 1993 national elections.
For the
first time, the law would allow voters to cast their
ballots
separately for mayoral candidates. In previous elections,
the
practice of split-party voting was not allowed, and the
mayors were
elected based on the percentage of the vote received by
the
presidential candidates. The reform of the electoral law
is
significant in that it makes elected mayors directly
accountable to
the electorate and strengthens the democratic process at
the local
level. The reform could also strengthen the chances for
the
nation's two smaller parties to gain representation in the
municipalities.
Data as of December 1993
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