Honduran Presidential Polling Shows Race Tightening

Honduran news media today published reports based on the latest CID Gallup poll, of a sample of 1220 voters surveyed between September 6 and 12. Reuters reported only that Xiomara Castro of the LIBRE party is in the lead at 29%, with Juan Orlando Hernández of the currently ruling Partido Nacional in second place at 27%-- a statistical dead heat, given the margin of error of +/-2%.

From May to the present in CID Gallup polling, Hernández has gained 9% in his support.

Where are those additional voters coming from?

Coverage of the poll in La Prensa provides information on all the major candidates, that we can use to show how CID Gallup polling looks over time (click for a larger image):

This suggests that the added voters for Juan Orlando Hernández could be members of the Partido Nacional who supported their party's candidate back in January, when he polled 23%, but fell away so that by May he polled only 18%, and now are back in the fold.

They could also include former supporters of Salvador Nasralla. The Anti-Corruption party candidate saw his support in the same series of CID Gallup polls rise from 18% to 21% from January to May, then fall to 11% in September.

It is also possible, as we have suggested previously, that something was odd about those May polling numbers from CID Gallup, which stand out when you look at all the polling over time (click for larger image; for clarity, does not include no reply/none of the above):

 

La Prensa repored that "Xiomara Castro is the public figure with the most favorable opinion among those measured in this poll". She has significant support from other parties, holding the loyalty of 93% of LIBRE voters while also drawing 15% of the Liberal Party vote, 3% of the Anti-Corruption party vote, and even 7% of the Partido Nacional voters.

The Partido Nacional and Partido Liberal, the two traditional dominant parties, face fractured party loyalty that most benefits LIBRE's candidate.

Only 71% of  Partido Nacional voters say they would vote for their party's candidate today. An astonishing 14% either decline to state their preference or are not in favor of any of the candidates running now. The remainder of the Partido Nacional members support Xiomara Castro (7%), Mauricio Villeda (4%), or Salvador Nasralla (4%).

Things are worse for the Liberal Party. Only 62% of its members would vote for Mauricio Villeda today. Hernández and Nasralla would receive 6% and 7% of the Liberal Party vote, and Xiomara Castro would get 15%. Another 11% of Liberal Party voters simply do not like their options, or are not prepared to express affiliation with any of the candidates.

The CID Gallup poll also assessed the candidate preference of voters who either have no party affiliation, or were affiliated with some other party.

Of these voters, 55% express no preference. Castro receives support from 20%; Hernández (10%), Nasralla (8%) and Villeda (5%) are far behind.

With the Partido Nacional base split, we still see the same race it has been all along: one new party (LIBRE) that has run in the lead throughout the campaign, and a close second (Partido Nacional).

So it is noteworthy that CID Gallup found that 33% of those polled expect Juan Orlando Hernández to be the next president, while Xiomara Castro is expected to be the next president by 28%. 

That political calculus may reflect another of the CID Gallup poll's findings: "reported doubts about the capacity of the Tribunal Supremo Electoral to organize and execute honest and transparent elections".

Indigenous Leader Berta Caceres Ordered Jailed

"I will keep myself with my head held high and will all dignity: I say to them that those businessmen are mistaken if they think that the Lenca people will stop their historic fight in defense of the common property.... My crime is to carry blankets with the name of COPINH, to yell slogans and to create poems in defense of the Río Blanco..."

Honduras' progressive online news source, El Libertador reported these statements, made on Radio Globo by Berta Cáceres, Lenca activist and leader of the Consejo Cívico de Organizaciones Populares e Indígenas de Honduras (Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras: COPINH).

They came in response to a judge in Intibucá, Alicia Lizeth Naigh Reyes, ordering what El Libertador called "prisión preventiva" (preventive detention) for Cáceres. Preventive detention precedes trial.

In fact, as the notice posted by La Prensa late Friday made clear, this was the final sentencing for Cáceres' participation in Lenca mobilization against the Agua Zarca hydroelectric project in Río Blanco, Intibucá, by a Honduran-Chinese collaboration, DESA-SINOHYDRO

The lawyer for the three indigenous activists, Victor Fernández, said that the two other Lenca activists accused, Aureliano Molina and Tomás Membreño, were released under his parole, required to check in every 15 days.

Berta Cáceres was given a more severe sentence, to be served in the Centro Penal of La Esperanza, in the Department of Intibucá.

What Honduran media did not report is the full militarization of the scene, described by the Mexican news site Vanguardia:

The sentence was delivered... surrounded by some 700 police and military, including some inside the place, among them anti-riot police, who carried metal shields, tear gas bombs, and batons....in front of the court house, some 2000 Lenca supporting Cáceres with signs were present, while inside were Nora Cortina, one of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo of Argentina; Carlos H Reyes, Honduran labor leader; and Berta Oliva, director of the Comité de Familiares de Detenidos y Desaparecidos (COFADEH).

Not present at the sentencing was Berta Cáceres herself, who was represented by her legal counsel.

Proceso Digital published a story about the protest at the courthouse, claiming the indigenous protestors took over the building, but this detail does not appear in other coverage. They described the charges against the three Lenca leaders as

inciting the population of the western area of the country to cause damage to a business that is developing a hydroelectric project in the area.

It is apparently on these grounds, of inciting others, that Berta Cáceres was deemed a "subversive" and sentenced to jail.

The coverage of the sentencing, and the mass protest outside the courthouse, should call into question news reports that purported to show that the Lenca were in favor of the dam. El Heraldo, for example, headlined its September 7 story Lencas de acuerdo con construcción de represa, and wrote that

More than 100 residents, representing ten Lenca community organizations [patronatos] on the Río Blanco, north of Intibucá and south of Santa Barbará, signed an agreement of cooperation and mutual understanding with President Porfirio Lobo Sosa with the company Desarrollos Energéticos Sociedad Anónima (DESA) [the Honduran partner in this Chinese-Honduran project], accepting the construction of the hydroelectric dam “Agua Zarca”.

The event publicized in these stories notably lacked any participation from COPINH, although representatives from two other Lenca organizations were involved. According to these press reports, the signatories of the agreement stated that they were satisfied with the consultation of their communities-- a legal requirement for the project to proceed-- and in return, the company developing the project promised financial compensation of various kinds.

Of course, what the carefully orchestrated event held in Tegucigalpa did not address were the concerns of the protestors at the site of the Agua Zarca dam. There, in July, protests were met by the wounding of one protestor, and the death of another, through gunshot from army engineering division. In May, the same army unit was busy evicting protestors from the area of the dam.

In June, Radio Progreso posted video and an article in which the protestors specifically stated that the government had not consulted appropriately with the communities affected, as called for:

free, previous, and informed consultation, under ILO Convention 169, ancient land titles, historic rights and agreements signed between the Consejo Cívico de Organizaciones y Pueblos Indígenas de Honduras, COPINH, and the Estado de Honduras.

In this case, as in others, at issue is whether what the government did meets the standard of "free, previous, and informed" consultation.

The government stresses obtaining signatures from representatives of some groups, but does not address the wider question of whether these signatories are representing the actual position of the people.

The signing, taking place while three Lenca leaders were under trial for protesting, and after others had been wounded, killed, or kidnapped, arguably doesn't meet the criterion of being "free".

And getting signatures on documents on September 7, months after construction efforts and protests against them began, clearly does not qualify as "prior" consultation.

Landaverde Murder Update

When is attempted murder not a crime?

Why, in the Unified Courts of the department of Francisco Morazan, of course.

What passes for legal opinions from supposedly qualified judges in Honduras is sometimes surreal.

Marvin Noé Andino Mascareño stood accused of attempted homicide against Hilda Caldera, for wounding her while murdering her husband, Alfredo Landaverde, on September 7, 2011.  Landaverde was driving, and his wife was a passenger, in their car when at least four gunmen openend fire on them at an intersection as they stopped for a red light.

Andino was found innocent by Judge Ivan Castelar yesterday because, according to him, the attack was not directed at Caldera, but rather at her husband who was driving the car at the time.  Stop and think about that for a minute.  Castelar found Andino  innocent because Caldera was just in the way of his bullets, which really were aimed at Landaverde. So it wasn't attempted murder according to the Judge.

The Honduran Penal Code disagrees with Castelar about the need for a determination that there needs to be a demonstration that he intended to kill Caldera for Andino to have committed attempted murder.  That is a requirement of charging someone with the crime of murder.  But attempted murder is defined in article 15, which states that:

A crime is attempted when with intent to commit a particular crime, a person commits unequivocal acts that are not beyond the control of the agent.

So it should be attempted murder if, in the attempt to commit murder, you accidentally shoot someone else.  You only need to show premeditation if the charge is "murder".

Caldera, when asked to comment on the verdict, said

"They also shot at me, for a week I had a bullet in my shoulder....My God!  They shot me."

Caldera said that Judge Castelar has been obstructing the clarification of what actually happened, and who was responsible:

"I believe that this man (Castelar) is not for justice, he is not looking for any truth.  He does not want the case to go forward."

First, he refused to allow witness testimony during the preliminary hearing.  Second, he denied the witnesses' requests to testify in a closed court room in order to hide their identities from those they were implicating,  Now, he has cleared one of the shooters of trying to kill her. She also said:

"[They] killed my husband, they shot me, and he says that's not a crime.  He [the Judge] should explain that to the people of Honduras what is a crime in this country; we don't share his understanding."

Castelar has been involved in a number of high profile cases that put him in conflict with the Public Prosecutor's office.  In 2009 he dismissed charges against 24 college students for constructing or possessing molotov cocktails because the police had illegally raided university property with a prosecutor being present.  In 2011 he was summoned to give testimony for unnamed reasons which Castelar associated with his having given substitute punishments to a number of criminals instead of putting them in prison. At the time, Castelar told the press:

"I take it as an act of intimidation; they are putting pressure on us (the judges)." 

In 2013 he controversially gave house arrest to Marcello Chimirri, accused of embezzling from Hondutel.

His latest verdict, however, surpasses any of his previous actions: it would open the door for exonerating perpetrators of violent deaths of bystanders throughout Honduras, on the theory that if they didn't mean to do it, they aren't culpable.

Call it the "oops!" defense.

Massive defections from radical leftist party!

Or maybe not.

We recently wrote about the curious way Proceso Digital chooses to cover LIBRE and the candidacy of Xiomara Castro de Zelaya. Their item, which really should have been labeled an opinion piece, is hysterical. Not hysterical funny, mind you: hysterical standing in a parking lot and screaming hysterical.

The screaming starts below the digital fold, in paragraph 8 (all of the bold-faced type and italics that follow are in the original; no emphasis has been added):

Libre and its mini-competitor, the UD-Faper alliance, have in common their support for 21st century socialism, their position against the system, and their hatred of what they call the “poderes fácticos” [roughly, powers that be], promising to push for a constitutional assembly that will succeed in changing the present “state of things”.

They are also followers of the departed ex-president Hugo Chavéz and of his successor Nicolás Maduro and the rest of the governments of the Alternativa Bolivariana para las Américas (Alba).

Oh my. 21st century socialism, bringing Chavez back from the dead, no less. Amazingly, the article gets more over-wrought. A final section headlined simply "Institutions" reads in full:

Polls underline that on the level of party membership, the National Party is the party with the most backing, followed by the Liberal and in a distant third place, Libre.

But that membership has to awaken partisan fervor of followers that must translate itself into an intention to vote.

In any case, the Honduran center right will participate in elections where for the first time its supremacy is endangered along with the future of the century-old political system of two parties and support for the system.

The division of the center right vote, as occurred in Venezuela and Nicaragua, could give place to the rise and consolidation of the left and of a hegemonic model that they will create afterward with the same tools of power.

The apocalypse is apparently coming, unless the forces of center right stability get motivated and turn out.

This would be funny if it weren't that it is acceptable as "news" in Honduras' most modern news medium.

The hysteria here would be merely curious if it were not part of a concerted reactionary press attempt to understate what the viability of the candidacy of Xiomara Castro-- and the less viable, but still much stronger than expected candidacy of Salvador Nasralla-- actually is telling us about the Honduran political landscape.

Yes, party membership is highest in the two traditional parties. But recent polling by the Honduran NGO CESPAD indicates that only 58% of Partido Nacional members, and only 50% of Liberal Party members, intend to vote for their party's nominee. CESPAD describes this as a "rupture" of traditional party loyalty, with only 31% of those polled in July saying they would not think of voting outside their declared party.

It isn't a mystery why things are changing, either. CESPAD July polling included two amazing responses to questions about what respondents feel needs to happen. Almost three quarters-- 72.9%-- responded that changes needed to be "radical and in all areas".

Seventy-five percent of respondents said they wanted to see a new Constitutional Assembly write a new Constitution for Honduras. CESPAD notes these respondents are not a uniform ideological block: rather, support for radical change, crystallized in the desire for a new constitution, crosses the spectrum of those they polled.

Will one of the two traditional parties win this election? Maybe. After all, there are pragmatics involved in getting out the vote, in poll watching, in making sure your voters are motivated and not intimidated. But it is not a sure thing, and that is legitimate news.

The least likely thing we would expect is any flight back to the traditional Liberal Party by LIBRE supporters, seeing their candidate in the lead. Yet making that claim is another of the strategies Proceso Digital is trying out in their advocacy against the electoral flow, masquerading as news.

Just before they broke out into bold face and italicized attempts to attach a corpse to Xiomara Castro, Proceso Digital's anonymous writer produced this extraordinary paragraph:

The polls support analysts in that the electoral tent of the traditional left, fused with those that abandoned the Partido Liberal, makes up approximately 25-30% [of the electorate]. A base that in recent days has moved, with massive returns of LIBRE supporters to the white-and-red hosts [a reference to the Liberal Party colors, vs. the red and black of LIBRE]. 

Talk about burying your lede! Massive defections from LIBRE to Mauricio Villeda's candidacy? please, tell me more! Starting with your source for this actual news item?

The same claim was published in an article on September 14 in El Heraldo. There, it has a source:  the Liberal Party, which says that between 500 and 1500 party activists will soon be announced as returning to the fold, having not found LIBRE congenial.

"Massive returns" is, obviously, not quantified. But even in the diminished Liberal Party, 1500 people is hardly "massive".

As we previously reported, 31% of the electorate is not registered with any party. The Partido Nacional reportedly was the choice of 32%, LIBRE of 14%, and the Partido Liberal, 15% of the electorate. During the last election cycle, the electorate was projected at about 4.3 million eligible voters (only 2.1 million actually cast votes). That would put Liberal Party membership somewhere upwards of 600,000. If 1500 party activists shift from LIBRE back to the Partido Liberal, that would be a net gain of around-- well, let's say rather less than 1%, at the expense of a similar minuscule percentage of LIBRE's membership.

But it sure sounds good, doesn't it? especially when Liberal Party officials explain that these returnees were distressed, not by their inability to achieve prominent leadership positions, but because they were shocked to realize that LIBRE had an "ideology of the extreme and radical left".

The real news here is and remains that a third party in Honduras has managed to equal the membership of one of the two traditional parties, and is currently polling in the lead of all parties. Whether LIBRE or the Anti-Corruption Party wins the election, the level of support they have gained is evidence that the dissatisfied Honduran electorate has found a new way to express its disenchantment-- not just refraining from voting, but aspiring to vote for insurgent candidates and parties.

Which is indeed a menace to the status quo.

How do you cover a new progressive party in Honduras?

With misleading critique masquerading as news, it would appear.

We previously commented on the relative lack of reporting in Honduran media of LIBRE's actual positions, and Xiomara's campaign events. We have hesitated to give more space to the odd way she is being covered, but it is time, now.

Proceso Digital, an online Honduran news outlet, published a piece on Friday about the fragmented voter landscape in Honduras. In the third paragraph, after noting that LIBRE is in the lead in all the presidential polls, they describe the presidential candidate as "keeping herself practically unknown, sheltered behind the figure of her husband, ex-president Manuel Zelaya". (We will return to some of the more outrageous parts of this "news article" in another post.)

What caught our attention was the phrase "casi anonimo" (practically unknown)-- an active link in the story. We followed it, and landed on a previous Proceso Digital story, published July 16, headlined "Xiomara Castro Newly Absent from Public Events".

The "public event" in July was the selection, by lottery, of places on the ballot for each party. Proceso Digital noted in passing that Salvador Nasralla also absented himself from this political show; but it was the LIBRE party candidate who came in for criticism for not being there. Both of the new parties sent delegates, so it wasn't a boycott of this step in the process. The story tried to make it seem like evidence of a pattern of hiding Xiomara to avoid public scrutiny, so that she remains "practically unknown".

Which is kind of amazing, when you think about it, since Xiomara became visible as a political actor through the most public political events of Honduras' recent history: the overthrow of the legally elected government of Honduras in 2009, and the sustained public protest that followed and was brutally suppressed by the de facto regime. Video footage shows her, in early July 2009, declaring that she couldn't stay safely in refuge while the people were giving their lives to the cause. By October 2009, public polling was showing Xiomara Castro de Zelaya with the highest approval rating of any public figure in Honduras.

So, she is hardly anonymous, unknown, or simply standing in the shadow of her husband. She is representing the positions of LIBRE, which are continuations (or extensions) of policy directions of the Zelaya administration. And despite the claim that she is not appearing in public, even with the Honduran press being less than fair and balanced, we can reconstruct a clear record of regular public events where she has announced or discussed LIBRE policy directions.

In fact, the same article complaining about her (scheduled) absence from a formal event (at which her party was suitably represented) reported that Xiomara Castro issued a position statement the same week: that she would send the military back to their quarters if elected. Cholusat Sur covered her statement on July 16:

in her government, the military would return to their quarters because their function is not to go out in the streets to patrol, their function is to protect national sovereignty, combat drug trafficking, and prevent contraband arms traffic, what should be done, asserted Xiomara, is to make it possible for the National Police to really dedicate themselves to the security of the people.

On August 4, Tiempo, in coverage of a campaign event in Tocoa in the Department of Colon, noted that she reiterated to supporters there her plan to demilitarize policing and send the armed forces to guard the border. At a campaign event in early September held in Siguatepeque, Department of Comayagua, she announced a plan to form a new national advisory body on culture, and received a formal statement in support of her campaign from a coalition of Honduran writers and artists.

In recent campaign appearances, Xiomara Castro has emphasized the need for support of the rural agrarian population. On September 9, she called for extension of credit at low interest to rural farmers and small businesses, while also restating her intent to remove the military from civilian policing. This was during a tour of small towns in the state dominated by San Pedro Sula, the Department of Cortes, Santa Cruz de Yojoa, San Francisco de Yojoa, San Antonio and Potrerillos.

What is notable in these campaign events is not just the kinds of audiences she is addressing: the venues are places outside the two major cities, including locations (Tocoa, Siguatepeque) that are centers of rural organizing.

So where is Xiomara anonymous and invisible, as Proceso Digital claims? In addition to the lottery for ballot position, the Honduran press reported her declining to attend events of the Chamber of Commerce in Tegucigalpa, and other events planned by the Consejo Hondureña de la Empresa Privada (COHEP).

The actual story here, then, is that a candidate running for president on a ticket emphasizing social justice and seeking popular support, who has no reason to think the business community will back her, is choosing events where her message may motivate voters. And she is using those appearances to publicize a consistent set of policy positions. Pretty outrageous, isn't it?

Fiscal Irresponsibility and the Security Tax

Who would think it was OK to spend 1,800 million lempiras ($90 million dollars) from a fund whose balance is only 500 million lempiras ($25 million dollars)?

That's spending more than 3 times your current balance!

Juan Ferrera, head of the government commission that decides how to spend the income from the security tax, thinks it's OK.  Not only that, but he plans to borrow perhaps 600 million lempiras ($30 million dollars) to cover the shortfall from his commission's irresponsible spending, as short term loans from domestic Honduran banks which will be at high interest rates. He proposes to pay the loans back with the projected income from the security tax in 2014.

The security tax, new in 2012, is a tax on bank transactions intended to pay for additional security efforts in the country in general. After the tax was approved, it was modified by Congress so that in addition to reinforcing security, it could be used to "fortify the finances" of the government. It has been used as a candy jar for everyone's pet idea of how to spend government funds, and ultimately, they spent more than they will take in this year, by a lot.

Ferrera made the astounding admission that his commission, which was set up to make decisions about administering funds from the security tax, has made no decisions.  Instead, he says the decisions were made by the Secretary of Defense and Security (Arturo Corrales), the Supreme Court (Jorge Rivera Aviles), the Public Prosecutor's office (formerly Luis Rubi, now Oscar Fernando Chinchilla), and municipalities. 

Basically, if anyone proposed using funds from the security tax for any old project, it simply was done.  The commission headed by Ferrera totally abdicated its responsibility.

Naturally they overspent. There was no one accountable. 

The biggest winner by far has been the Secretary of Defense and Security, who assigned himself a whopping 716.7 million lempiras ($35.8 million dollars).  This includes paying for both the new Military Police (24.5 million lempiras), and a Police Special Operations Unit (los Tigres), both championed by Juan Orlando Hernandez and approved by the Honduran Congress.  While the Military police unit has started operations, with between 600 and 1000 troops chosen from existing soldiers, the Tigres unit has not even begun organizing itself, despite having been authorized last spring.

The latest proposed charge to the security tax:  800,000 lempiras to electrify the island of Isla Conejo, subject of a dispute with El Salvador.  Ferrera said

"There's no doubt that it's part of our territory and we need to exercise sovereignty in this place and because of that the petition [to electrify the island] was immediately approved....the money is already in the hands of the company that will carry out the project."

Has any of this spending spree made a significant change in the security of the Honduran people?

Not significantly by any of the measures that matter.  The government predicts that the murder rate will be around 80 per 100,000 population, while the National University's Observatory of Violence sees the rate continuing at 85 per 100,000 for the rest of the year, off slightly from its observed rate of 91 per 100,000 in 2012.

More militarization of policing, and intensifying a border dispute with a neighbor over an uninhabited island hardly seems like enough to justify the over-spending and lack of accountability demonstrated.

Where are undecided voters likely to move?

Honduran presidential election polling has settled into a pretty clear pattern.

That has LIBRE candidate Xiomara Castro in the lead, with National Party candidate Juan Orlando Hernández close, but always behind.

Meanwhile, voters disinterested in any of the candidates running form anywhere from 22% to 31%. If you add decline to state to none of the above in the poll with the largest none of the above totals-- a July poll by Paradigma-- almost half of those polled (48.9%) are not saying they have committed to any of the candidates running.

And that brings the question: can we predict who probably will benefit from movement by those voters?

Our answer: no, we cannot. Paradigma and CESPAD, two of the polling sources, have no previous track record in Honduras for us to use to assess how it might do. Even if there was a wealth of prior polling, none of it would come from the first election after a coup d'etat that tore apart one of the traditional parties, and ushered in two new, and apparently reasonably popular, new parties.

But there are others who do think they can predict what will happen in the coming election. The Economist Intelligence Unit posted a note on the election September 12 (h/t Bloggings by Boz, who has his own post on the way the polling is shaping up, for bringing this to our attention).

The Economist/Intelligence Unit doesn't discuss all the polls we have summarized. We continue to caution that there are clear differences between polling agencies which suggest the best way to assess poll data is across time by an individual pollster.

But the thing we find most surprising is that despite the low level of absolute support for individual candidates, the tightness of the race between the top two candidates, and the large block declaring no preference or absolutely not in favor of any of the existing candidates, The Economist/Intelligence Unit analysis projects a final winner:

We maintain our forecast that Mr Hernández will win the November election as the PN Is likely to gain a larger share of the undecided vote on polling day. However, a low turnout could still result in a LIBRE victory.

Without any explanation of why they think more voters currently registered as undecided will turn to the Partido Nacional, we find ourselves troubled by this projection. We have discussed privately a number of scenarios that we can see happening-- but predicting how the undecideds will break seems, to us at any rate, without basis.

CESPAD-- the latest source of polling data to become available-- provides an illustrative example of how complicated such prediction is in Honduras, this year.

Let's start with how voters polled feel about the Partido Nacional-- which currently controls the presidency (under Porfirio Lobo Sosa) and the Congress (for much of the Lobo Sosa presidency, led by Juan Orlando Hernández). In a word: the people are not satisfied. Since February 2012, CESPAD has found that a majority of the people say that the current president is making things worse (47%) or has no effect on the country's problems (38%). Less than 10% said his administration was helping improve conditions.

Is it unfair of us, then, to doubt that the Partido Nacional is going to attract undecided voters?

CESPAD actually gives us a fascinating look at which voters are still undecided (or uninterested in any of the actual candidates) by party affiliation. (We will spend another post just on this topic. For now, though, we simply want to trace who might be expected to shift to Juan Orlando Hernández.)

About 17% of the Liberal Party members; about 21% of the Partido Nacional members; 11% of Anti-Corruption party members; and only 4% of LIBRE members, report being undecided. So where would the undecided voters that might go Partido Nacional come from?

Liberal Party voters not supporting their own party's candidate are overwhelmingly planning to vote LIBRE (about half of these rogue voters). Unless we assume that the undecided voters represent a much more conservative group within the Liberal Party, it is hard to imagine that 17% of voters breaking for Juan Orlando Hernández. The actual candidate of the Liberal Party represents the more conservative wing of that party, so we think it is unlikely these undecideds feel the Liberal candidate is not conservative enough, which would be the motivation to vote PN. If they cannot find it possible to vote LIBRE, there are other somewhat progressive options available. Or they can reject the entire system and vote Anti-Corruption Party-- as over 6% of Liberal Party Members are already planning to do.

The tiny percentage of LIBRE members who are not saying they will vote for Xiomara Castro indicate preferences either for the Liberal Party, or for an even more progressive minority party. Even if we thought all the undecided LIBRE voters were closet law-and-order pro-business conservatives, that would be a minuscule addition to Partido Nacional rolls.

Salvador Nasralla has support from 82% of the party he founded. Only 1% of the party members plan to vote Partido Nacional-- against about 3% each for the Liberal Party and LIBRE. Again, it seems highly unlikely that the 11% undecided/no preference party members think the Partido Nacional is their best choice-- the whole basis of the Anti-Corruption Party is that present politicians are too corrupt-- and the present politics of Honduras is dominated by the PN, and until recently, had as its most effective leader, Juan Orlando Hernández, as head of Congress.

That leaves us with undecided/no preference voters who said they were members of the Partido Nacional itself. This is a substantial number of potential voters-- 21% of party members. Presumably, what The Economist/Intelligence Unit is expecting is that these voters will settle for their party candidate in the end. Yet if we assume their reluctance to state a preference stems from a lack of enthusiasm for their party's candidate, we might consider whether they will follow the lead of the more than 20% of their fellow party members who have decided to vote for someone else. Here, the main beneficiary has been Nasralla, who has support from about 9% of PN members. Nasralla's Anti-Corruption Party is not particularly progressive/liberal in its politics; it is pro-business and solidly Honduran in its identity. The anti-crime theme of Nasralla's campaign is familiar PN policy. It is worth noting that rogue PN voters support Xiomara Castro in almost as high numbers-- suggesting some of the dissatisfied PN voters may be more progressive.

To sum up, we would echo what CESPAD analysts wrote:

The weakening of the traditional party loyalty, is tending to modify the historic balance of political forces. In the presidential candidacies there exists a clear migration of the vote of the Partido Liberal (PL) and of the Partido Nacional (PN) toward the new political movements. Xiomara Castro is the one that most attracts the vote from other parties: 23% of the Liberal vote and 8% of the Nationalist vote.

CESPAD doesn't offer much support for a claim that the Partido Nacional has support to gain:

Effectively, the electoral preferences for Xiomara Castro and Juan Orlando Hernández have grown since February of 2012 until July of 2013. Nonetheless, the pace of the growth has been greater for Xiomara Castro. Simultaneously there has been registered a growth in electoral sympathies for the LIBRE party (8 points) and a deterioration of the electoral preference for the Partido Nacional (PN) (falling 4 points). [emphasis added]

That seems to us to caution against assuming that the PN has some elasticity to count on. We won't be surprised if Juan Orlando Hernández is declared the winner come election day; but we don't think the data allow for anyone to actually say this is an evident outcome to expect.