Denial, Anger, and Bargaining: The Liberal Party of Honduras and the Stages of Grief

The Kubler-Ross model of grief has five stages:  denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance.  The Liberal Party in Honduras is somewhere between denial and anger after the November 24, 2013 elections. It seems poised to fragment more as it attempts to come to terms with its losses-- of party members, and of the offices of president and head of congress.

Let's start with denial. The Liberal Party wants to blame LIBRE (and to a lesser extent PAC) for all of the problems that beset Honduran society.  This despite the fact that the National Party has ruled Honduras for the last four years, and the Liberal Party ruled it for seven months after the coup of 2009, in which Liberal party members illegally removed from office the last Liberal Party president.

Which brings us to anger. The 2009 coup ripped apart the Liberal Party. A particularly conservative part of the party took control. The more liberal members of the party largely abandoned it and went on to form the Frente and LIBRE. As the election results from November 2013 show, about half of the supporting electorate left it as well. That has the remaining Liberal Party angry at others who it blames for its diminished position in Honduran politics.

If Kubler-Ross is right, the party needs to move on, and we can expect to see bargaining and depression before they finally reach acceptance.

Bargaining does seem to be the order of the day.

Since 2009 the Consejo Central Ejecutivo del Partido Liberal (CCEPL), which runs the party, has been in conservative hands, with Elvin Santos Lozano, and more recently Mauricio Villeda Bermudez, serving as President of the Executive council.

The Party leadership has not delivered a consistent message to its newly elected Congressional delegation about what it should be doing vis-a-vis the organization of the upcoming session of Congress.

Mauricio Villeda, the losing presidential candidate for the party, told congress members to wait and consult with the people, represented by the municipal mayors who were also elected in November. The municipal mayors have now spoken: they told the Congressional delegation to negotiate with the National Party for a Liberal president of Congress, in return for acting as allies (which would give back to the National Party the voting majority, but not the ability they have had to amend the constitution).

Today, another conservative member of the Party, Benjamin Bogran, who was its coordinator for the past election and is Secretary of the party, advised the party members in Congress to make no alliances, except with the people of Honduras.

Rumors have been flying suggesting that some Liberal Party Congressmen are following the mayor's wishes and talking with the National Party leadership about maybe having a Liberal Party president of Congress in exchange for an alliance between the two parties.

Other factions in the party, such as that represented by Yani Rosenthal, current head of its Congressional delegation, see that as death for the party.

However, the conservative faction that currently controls the Liberal Party blames LIBRE and PAC for all their problems, and sees this as a case of better the devil you know than the devil you don't know.  Bogran said that he could not support an alliance with LIBRE or PAC because "the two of them were conspiring to destroy the Liberal Party".

That's strong, and clearly angry language, but it is also misplaced anger. It is the current leadership of the Liberal Party with its swing to the right of the political spectrum that is responsible for its current loss of significance, but they cannot see it.  They're in denial.

As it struggles to stay significant, and remain a viable party that can attract voters, the best political strategy for the Liberal Party would probably be to not form any alliance, denying both the National Party, and the opposition block formed by LIBRE and PAC the required majority to pass legislation. That would allow the Liberal Party to effectively be the swing vote in policies from all sides.

Bogran seems to be suggesting that something like this actually is the leadership's position when he instructed the Congressional delegation to make no alliances except to do what is best for the Honduran people.  The party seems to be struggling to control its Congressional delegation, with Bogran's words an attempt to reign them back in and under party control.

Will it work?

It hasn't so far.  Almost half the Liberal Party delegation reportedly has had some kind of talks with Juan Orlando Hernández and the National Party directorate about leadership positions for Liberals in Congress.

Villeda seems to have lost control of the directorate of the Party. Vos El Soberano reports that Carlos Flores Facussé (ex-president, owner of La Tribuna)  has taken control of the party behind the scenes, comparing it to the coup Flores Facussé's father staged against Villeda Bermudez's father in 1963.  Reportedly, Flores Faccussé wants the party to be a viable platform from which to launch his daughter on a future presidential campaign. Villeda Bermudez has remained silent, and has been out of the country since before the New Year.

Congress meets to organize on Tuesday, January 21. The new Congress will be sworn in and elect a provisional directorate. That provisional directorate then will name the permanent directorship of Congress, those who will run the body for the next two years.  This must be done by Saturday, January 25.

It should be an interesting week.

Debts of the Coup

Roberto Micheletti Bain contracted more debt with Honduran banks in his seven month takeover of the Honduran government than the previous three administrations did in twelve years.

At least, that's what Julio Raudales, the Vice Minister of Planning, told El Tiempo last Thursday, although the figures he cites are not quite as bad as that. Not quite-- but bad enough.

From the beginning of Carlos Flores Facussé's presidency to the date of the coup, the indebtedness of the Honduran government to Honduran banks went from 5000 million lempiras to 14,000 million lempiras.

But between June 28, 2009 and January 27, 2010, under the de facto regime headed by Micheletti, Honduran government debt rose from 14,000 million lempiras to 21,000 million lempiras.

Raudales added that the actual number may in fact be higher. Bills are still coming in from that period, and must be paid out of the current budget allocations, reducing services now.

This is another cost of the 2009 coup. As we reported at the time, the intransigence of the Micheletti regime in the face of universal international condemnation led him to draw down Honduran financial reserves dramatically.

And that is a debt that the Honduran people will pay.

Miguel Facussé Blinks

Miguel Facussé Barjum, head of DINANT Corporation, is waging a public relations campaign to try and improve his image, and that of his company.

At the same time, he is sharpening his attacks on those who criticize him.

On the PR side, he has received positive publicity for his scarlet macaw research center in Zacate Grande. A year ago he gave over 100 titles to properties in Zacate Grande for things like the town water tank, the churches, etc. with the idea that the town would protect wildlife and encourage tourism.

Today he is in a fight with about 300 campesinos in Zacate Grande over land rights and the right of their radio station to operate.

His recent actions suggest he has reached the end of his rope. In short order, he has sued prominent critics; taken out self-promoting newspaper ads, including one in which he sought to unilaterally renegotiate the terms of a settlement with the Honduran government over disputed land in the Bajo Aguan; and continued his campaign of seeking police enforcement of judicial orders against campesinos living on land he refuses to cede.

Targets of his suits against Honduran critics recently included Monsignor Luis Alfonso Santos, Bishop of Santa Rosa de Copan, and Andres Pavon, head of a major human rights organization in Honduras, the Comité para la Defensa de los Derechos Humanos (CODEH).

Both were sued for defamation of character and, ironically, purported human rights violations.

The case centers on comments Santos and Pavón made associating Miguel Facussé with the deaths of 14 campesinos (so far) in the Bajo Aguan.

The cases against both gentlemen were dismissed by the Tribunal de Sentencia of Tegucigalpa, though Facussé's lawyer, Antonio Ocampo, wants to appeal, or to refile the charges in Choluteca or Olancho where he has friendly judges.

Bishop Santos issued an apology for his use of the word "arabe" to describe Facussé, whose family has been Honduran for several generations after emigrating from the Middle East.

But none of his critics have been discouraged from discussing the facts Facussé most objects to having mentioned, the role of his hired enforcers in the deaths of campesinos in the Bajo Aguan.

In his latest move, on June 10, Facussé took out a newspaper advertisement stating the terms on which he would accept government compensation in return for the disputed land in the Bajo Aguan. This reverses positions he has held as recently as June 7.

Then, in an interview with radio station HRN, Facussé claimed that much of the land was worth 300,00 lempiras/hectare, but that he would sell it for 135,000/hectare to the government. A further 800 hectares he claimed were worth 400,000 lempiras/hectare, for which he wanted full price from the government.

But the land wasn't really worth what he was asking, and the government took a hard line on the price.

In today's paid advertisement, he said he accepted the government's offered price for 3200 hectares of land, at prices that vary between 76,000 and 103,000 lempiras per hectare.

But he continued to try to bargain, saying that he would not transfer three farms the government plans to transfer to the campesinos represented by MUCA. Cesar Ham, head of INA, rejected Facussé's offer since it would violate the government's agreement with MUCA.

The farms Facussé does not wish to transfer are called Marañones, Lempira, and La Concepción. Marañones, 400 hectares, he proposes to give to the Cooperativo de Empleados de DINANT, set up for the employees who will lose their jobs in this land transfer.

Lempira and La Concepción, totaling some 894 hectares, he insists on keeping. What's unclear is what's so special about these two farms, located in Tocoa proper.

Why did Facussé hold out for ridiculously high prices for the land, then give in and accept the government's much lower rate?

The newspaper advertisement offers a clue. In it he says that he seeks to collaborate with the government to establish an environment suitable for foreign investment, something that he needs to keep his business running.

Not only did his advertisement fail in his goal of getting a settlement on his terms; it also perpetuated his campaign against the campesino activists in the Bajo Aguan. In it, he announced that he had solicited and received orders from a judge in Tocoa to remove the campesinos who have occupied the farms he does not wish to sell to the government, and he was turning these judicial orders over to the police for enforcement.

Facussé's continuing conflict with campesinos and publicity about the violence against them has cost his company. Significant international financing for his biodiesel project was withdrawn this spring by two separate European sources. This biodiesel plant was to be supplied from his African oil palm farms in the Bajo Aguan.

While attempting to generate good public relations, Facussé has managed to point out that he is the impediment to a Bajo Aguan solution. The scrutiny his position in the Bajo Aguan has invited from international investors is a problem that affects all Honduran businesses, not just DINANT Corporation.

The government of Lobo Sosa knows this, and it knows it cannot go back on its agreement with MUCA and retain its own international funding. The government could simply expropriate the farms in question, and pay the appraised value of the land. It is a credit to Miguel Facussé's power that so far it has not done so.

But when Facussé began to take out newspaper ads to try to take his case to the public, it was a sign that he knows he has lost control of the message internationally, and probably nationally as well.