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Honduras The Struggle of Electoral Democracy: the Elections of 1985
The forced departure of Brigadier General Álvarez on
March 31,
1984, and his succession by a group of officers who
demonstrated
less interest in political affairs than he had markedly
changed the
political situation prevailing in the country. President
Suazo
Córdova, previously restrained by his trepidations
concerning
lvarez, began to show signs of becoming a caudillo.
Although the
constitution forbade his reelection, Suazo Córdova
conspired to
nominate for the 1985 presidential elections Oscar Mejía
Arellano,
a fellow Rodista (the PLH faction founded by Modesto Rodas
Alvarado). Every politician in Honduras recognized the
octogenarian
Mejía for what he was, namely someone who would perpetuate
Suazo's
control of the Presidential Palace. Nevertheless, Suazo
Córdova
went about promoting Mejía's candidacy with every power at
his
disposal.
The potential key to a Mejía victory lay in the makeup
of the
Supreme Court of Justice, which could (under terms of the
1981
constitution) decide an election in which each candidate
failed to
receive a clear majority. As 1985 began, the Supreme Court
contained a firm majority of Suazo Córdova supporters. The
leadership of the Congress, both PLH and PNH, recognized
the
self-serving scenario that Suazo Córdova had set up.
Moreover, they
realized that the constitution granted power to the
legislature to
remove Supreme Court justices for cause. The Congress
proceeded to
do just that when fifty-three of its eighty-two deputies
voted on
March 29, 1985, to replace five of nine justices because
of their
alleged corruption. Five new justices quickly took the
oath of
office.
During the debate over the justices's corruption, Suazo
Córdova
had fulminated both publicly and privately, threatening to
declare
a state of emergency and close the Congress if the five
lost their
seats on the court. Although he stopped short of
fulfilling that
threat, troops did surround the Congress building
temporarily after
the deputies announced their action. Furthermore, military
police
took into custody Ramón Valladares Soto, the new president
of the
Supreme Court. Arrests of the four new other justices
followed. A
lower court judge charged the five with treason. On April
1, the
judge filed treason charges against fifty-three
legislative
deputies who had voted to replace the five justices. The
proceedings against the fifty-three, if pursued to its
culmination,
threatened to result in the revocation of legislators'
legal
immunity from prosecution.
The Congress rapidly reacted to Suazo's counterattack.
On April
3, 1985, the assembly passed by a forty-nine to
twenty-nine vote a
motion censuring the president for his actions. In another
action
more calculated to curb the president's power, the
legislature
passed a bill establishing guidelines for primary
elections within
political parties. Had such guidelines been in place
previously,
the entire governmental crisis might have been avoided.
Not
surprisingly, Suazo Córdova vetoed the bill almost two
weeks later,
the day after the Rodista faction had endorsed his choice,
Mejía,
as the official presidential candidate of the PLH.
The resolution of the crisis demonstrated how little
Honduras
had progressed from the days when the military had guided
events
either directly or indirectly. During the early April days
of the
dispute between Suazo Córdova and the Congress, Brigadier
General
López had publicly declared himself and the armed forces
neutral.
As events began to degenerate, however, the officer corps
moved to
reconcile the antagonists. At first, the military sought
to resolve
the dispute through informal contacts. When that failed,
the armed
forces convened direct negotiations between presidential
and
legislative representatives, with military arbiters. By
April 21,
the talks produced an agreement. The leaders of Congress
rescinded
their dismissal of the five justices and dropped their
demand for
primary elections. Supreme Court President Valladares
received his
freedom. In a complicated arrangement, it was agreed that
candidates of all political factions could run for
president. The
winner of the election would be the faction that received
the most
votes within the party (PLH, PNH, or other) that received
the most
total votes. The arrangement conveniently ignored the
provision of
the constitution stating that the president must be the
candidate
who receives a simple majority of the popular vote.
Publicly, all
parties expressed approval of the outcome. Although
threatened
union strike action had influenced the negotiations, the
strongest
factor in their outcome had been pressure from the armed
forces
leadership.
The unorthodox nature of the agreed-upon electoral
procedures
delayed adoption of new regulations until late in
November. By that
time, four PLH candidates, three PNH candidates, and
several other
minor party candidates had filed. The campaign appeared to
pit two
PLH candidates--Mejía and San Pedro Sula engineer José
Azcona
Hoyo--against the PNH's Rafael Leonardo Callejas Romero in
a
contest that saw the two PLH candidates criticize each
other as
much as, or more than, they did their opposition outside
of their
own party. The final vote count, announced on December 23,
produced
the result that the makeshift electoral regulations had
made all
but inevitable--a president who garnered less than a
majority of
the total popular vote. The declared winner, Azcona,
boasted less
than 30 percent of the vote, as opposed to Callejas's 44
percent.
But because the combined total of PLH candidates equaled
54
percent, Azcona claimed the presidential sash. Callejas
lodged a
protest, but it was short-lived and probably represented
less than
a sincere effort to challenge the agreement brokered by
the
military.
Azcona faced multiple national and regional problems as
his
inauguration took place on January 27, 1986. The new
president's
inaugural address noted the country's many social
problems, but
promised "no magic formulas" to solve them. He also noted
the
growing national debt and promised to adhere to foreign
policies
guided by the principle of nonintervention. Azcona's
prospects for
a successful presidency appeared dim, partly because his
party's
bloc in the Congress was still splintered, unlike the more
united
PNH deputies on the other side of the aisle. Beyond such
parochial
concerns, the crisis in Central America still raged on,
presenting
a daunting prospect for any Honduran leader.
Data as of December 1993
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