Primary Elections 2008

On November 30, Hondurans exercised their democratic duty and voted in their primary elections to choose candidates for the two main political parties for the general elections in November, 2009. The new president elected in the general elections next year will take over on January 27, 2010. The new government will govern for four years with no chance of reelection, since it is forbidden by the Honduran Constitution.

Augusto Aguilar, president of the Electoral Supreme Court (TSE), said prior to the elections that the Honduran Armed Forces had successfully distributed all electoral material throughout the country.

The Liberal Party registered five different movements and the National Party registered four. Each party will choose their presidential candidate as well as three presidential designates (vice presidents), 128 Congressmen, 20 representatives for the Central American Parliament, and 298 municipal corporations.

The three minor political parties had no participation in the Primaries because two of them only registered one current and the other registered none, thus they will present their candidates according to their statutes.

The Presidential candidates for the Liberal Party were the current president of Congress Roberto Micheletti, lawyer Mauricio Villeda, television journalist Eduardo Maldonado, Dr. Marco Antonio Ramirez, and economist Miguel Nolasco.

In the National Party the presidential candidates were Porfirio Lobo Sosa, second time presidential candidate after being defeated by current president Manuel Zelaya in 2005, businessman and former ambassador of Honduras to the United States Mario Canahuati, also businessman Mario Facusse, and lawyer Jesus Flores.

Voting booths opened at 7:00 a.m. on Sunday morning in 5,306 voting centers throughout the country. Cameras were on hand to catch the first person to vote in Tegucigalpa at 7:10 a.m., but her vote was invalidated because the voter put her ballots in the boxes before the representatives had a chance to stamp them.

Voting tables were supposed to close at 4:00 p.m. that afternoon, but the TSE ordered they remain open until 5:00 p.m., to allow one more hour for citizens to get out to the voting centers.

Even though more citizens participate in the general elections than in the primaries, non-participation was significant this year; a census revealed 4.3 million citizens, more than half of the 7.3 million population. However, the TSE had already excluded 1.3 million living in the United States, since votes from abroad are only valid for general elections.

The first results were delivered by the press just a little after 5:00 p.m. By 6:30, Pepe Lobo was already declaring victory for the National Party. A couple hours later it was a marked tendency with almost 80% of the votes, while Mario Canahuati was in second place with almost 20% of the National Party’s votes.

Though Roberto Micheletti seemed to be the favorite in the Liberal Party, Mauricio Villeda of the Elvincista movement, started to show a significant advantage over the other liberal candidates including Micheletti, early in the process. After only couple of hours the trend would prove to be right and Micheletti had no other choice than to accept defeat.

The biggest controversy of the campaign was the inability of Vice President Elvin Santos to aspire to the Liberal candidacy, by constitutional impediments, after having supposedly served as President of Honduras during his vice presidency.

Santos designated Mauricio Villeda as pre-candidate of his group, Movimiento Elvincista, and assured he would continue to fight for his inscription if they won the Primary elections.