The New Political Landscape in Honduras

On Friday, La Prensa connected the dots on the new Congress, quoting statements from Xiomara Castro that suggest LIBRE party leadership is (while pursuing complaints of irregularities and inconsistencies in the official vote count) moving on to the next stage: functioning as a major opposition party in a new, multi-party political landscape.

Castro... pointed out that LIBRE has converted itself into an "important political force" by the number of congress-members that it gained in the unicameral Congress, made up of 128 members.

"We broke the chains of two-party rule, today we are located in the first place, today we have demonstrated that the people fought and will fight for the platform of LIBRE".

As previously noted, the Partido Nacional is projected to have 47 congress members; Libre will have 39; the Partido Liberal will have 26; and Salvador Nasralla's Partido Anticorrupción is expected to have 13 congress members, with the final three falling, one each, to the long-established smaller parties: PINU, the Christian Democrats, and the Partido de Unificación Democrática.

La Prensa adds a contrast with the existing congress that is worth quoting: 

In the present Congress, presided over and absolutely controlled by Hernández, the Partido Nacional has 71 diputados, the Partido Liberal 55, and the other three minority parties shared 12 seats, which had given total control to the conservative binomial that has governed this country for more than a century.

La Prensa is clearly anticipating less total control over the incoming government. That leads us to consider possibilities. LIBRE/PN coalitions seem unlikely (although some press reports earlier this week contained speculation about such an alliance).

We note with interest the opinion of Raúl Pineda Alvarado:

“The ideal is if there exists an agreement with all the political parties, but in any case the natural alliance that the nacionalistas could make is with the Partido Liberal”.

Pineda Alvarado is an ex-congress member for the Partido Nacional. So his comments give us insight into the pragmatic approach we might expect from within his party. His views are echoed by a re-elected Partido Nacional congress member, Antonio Rivera Callejas, who says that the PN could make alliances with the more "democratic" part of the Partido Liberal.

Rivera alludes to the marked division between the present day Liberal congess members, some of whom have stayed in line with the presidential candidate, Mauricio Villeda, and the other that has had more affinity with LIBRE. In the case of the first 26 virtually elected congress members, many of them re-elected, all belong to the first group, that is to say, they are "villedistas”.

Thus, we can expect an attempt to form a coalition of the two traditional parties on one side, with a possible 73 votes giving it a majority in Congress. Partido Nacional commentators add the three single representatives of the small parties, projecting 76 votes.

But that presumes that the entire Liberal party delegation does not see advantage in using its seats more flexibly, to advance its own political projects.

Earlier today, La Prensa suggested that the Partido Anti-Corrupción will form an alliance with LIBRE, in opposition to the two major parties. Despite ideological differences, both parties were mainly motivated by rejection of the existing power structure, which both characterized as fundamentally corrupt. Quoting PAC member (and projected congress member) Virgilio Padilla, La Prensa wrote

We believe that the opposition has to plan a block that can oppose the officialism of the government, and that can only be an alliance constructed with the Partido Liberal, Libre and PAC... We are disposed to establish an alliance that will defend Honduras, an alliance that represents the interests of Honduras, an alliance that will impede intervention in the Judicial Branch, because if the Partido Nacional is going to control all the powers of State, impunity is going to continue.

Salvador Nasralla, the presidential candidate, is said not to have ruled out any alliance, but La Prensa concludes alliance with the Partido Nacional is unlikely.

A three-way alliance would give LIBRE-PAC-Partido Liberal control of congress with 78 votes.

LIBRE and PAC alone would not be able to form a majority, with 52 votes. But they could make it much less simple for the Partido Nacional to pass its legislative agenda, even if they did not have formal support from the Partido Liberal.

Which more or less means that the husk of the Liberal Party, presided over by Mauricio Villeda, may have more power as a losing party than Villeda would have had if elected president with a minority of the national vote.

Heads May Roll....

Juan Orlando Hernandez aspires to be president, and things he controls are changing in Honduras.

With Porfirio Lobo Sosa's help, he has re-instated the "voluntary" contribution every government employee makes to the ruling political party.  Both parties have been accustomed to collecting "voluntary" payments from government employees, with people who decline being marginalized in their positions. What is new here is that a specific level of "contributions" has been set up, to be deducted directly from the workers' salaries and deposited directly into bank accounts controlled by the National Party. In theory an employee could not agree, but what government employee is going to risk that?

Hernandez isn't limiting himself to political jostling for the benefit of his party. Under his leadership, the Congress has been asserting more power over the other branches of government. He now says he will put the judicial branch, the public prosecutor's office, and the police in order by "supporting the good judge, the good prosecutor, the good policeman."

We've written about Congress and the not-so-Supreme Court before. Analyst Raul Pineda Alvarado told the press this morning "now they have a Supreme Court in tune with their plans, and intimidated."  Pineda Alvarado went on to remark on the amount of power now centralized in Hernandez and Lobo Sosa, noting that they will remove anyone who gets in their way.

Hernandez' current target is the executive branch.  He has been holding hearings in Congress where each cabinet-level official has come to give a report on their progress towards providing a secure life for Hondurans.  According to Hernandez, only General Julian Pacheco has performed well.  Pacheco is head of the intelligence service, and is widely rumored to be using the position to listen in on the phone calls of politicians. Not the person you want lined up against you if you are an ambitious Honduran politician.

Hernandez is reportedly going to demand replacement of Eduardo Villanueva, head of the Dirección de Investigación y Evaluación de la Carrera Policial (DIECP). The DIECP was created to manage the police cleanup process. Villanueva volunteered for the post after the original director quit in disgust from waiting for Congress to allocate a budget for the unit.  Instead of managing the police cleanup, Villanueva gave control of the process to the Police command, the very group that should have been the first to undergo the confidence tests.  Of the over 200 police who have failed the confidence exams, several have since been promoted, and only seven have been dismissed by Security Minister Pompeyo Bonilla.

Hernandez has also put in motion mechanisms to remove the Public Prosecutor Luis Rubí and several other top prosecutors.  After Rubí's Congressional testimony last week it was privately suggested Rubí resign. He chose not to, so now Congress is getting ready to formulate a "political trial" using the recently adopted law that gives Congress the power to review, and fire, without the right of appeal, any top government official, including the president, for anything Congress decides is negligent or incompetent or if there is an accusation of a serious crime or the person has worked against the constitution or national interest (Article 5 of the Ley de Juicio Politico).

Lobo Sosa has recently taken pot shots at Ramon Custodio, the Honduran Human Rights Ombudsman, calling him dishonored and unable to serve in international bodies.  Jimmy Dacaret of the right-wing UCD fears that Custodio is one of the people targeted by Lobo Sosa.  Dacaret supports Custodio because of Custodio's unwavering support of the pro-coup forces in Honduras.

German Leitzelar, a PINU party Congressman, is of the opinion that "no heads should roll because all of them would have to roll".  The failure he says, is one of not having a state security policy, and replacing a director here and there will not solve this.

Edmundo Orellana, a Liberal Party member, has said that what Hernandez desires is to place people loyal to him into positions of power. This is an opinion shared by Raul Pineda Alvarado, who said that Hernandez and Lobo Sosa are playing a political game.  Jimmy Dacaret, of the right wing UCD agrees that Lobo Sosa and Hernandez are playing political games in concentrating power in themselves.

This is the new face of the National Party, the candidate for next president of Honduras. Not a pretty picture.

Not Really Model Cities Again

Juan Orlando Hernandez is determined to get new legislation approving Regimenes Especiales de Desarrollo (RED), what people have been calling "model cities", through the session of the Honduran Congress that ends this month.  To that end, he has introduced a new package of legislation.

He says this draft law takes into account the objections raised by the Supreme Court that made the previous law unconstitutional.  Uncommented on is why he did this, since he later got Congress to illegally dismiss the justices that found the law unconstitutional.  Might it be that they were right?  Oh my!

What he proposes is the establishment of 12 special kinds of entities:

international finance centers
international logistics center
autonomous cities
special economic zones
international commercial courts
special investment districts
renewable energy districts
zones with their own legal system
special agro-industrial zones
special tourist zones
mining zones
forest zones.

What Juan Orlando Hernandez has done is change the name, change the function, and keep the acronym.  This is meant to preserve the mental link to model cities, but this legislation is not about model cities.

The proposed entities are nothing like the previous Regiones Especiales de Desarollo proposed under the  unconstitutional law. Nor are these any kind of model city using either Paul Romer's or Michael Strong's definitions.  Forget everything you've read.  This is something very different.

These zones will all supposedly have "functional and juridical autonomy", although later in El Heraldo's brief description of this new system they say that conflicts will be handled either through arbitration or through a new branch of the existing Judicial system.  So that's clear, right?

There's a twist, though given Honduran electoral politics, not much of one: these new entities can only be established by a referendum and once established their charter can only be modified by a referendum of those who live within them.

The law will modify the Honduran constitution, which is why it's urgent to get it passed in the next few days, before this legislative session ends.  In Honduras, constitutional amendments must be passed by two successive sessions of Congress. More or less what Juan Orlando Hernandez plans is to bring this up as soon as January 19, then again right after January 25th when the new Congressional session begins. 

Article 294 of the constitution would be modified to divide the national territory into Departments (the existing administrative units, equivalent to states) and special zones:

The national territory will be divided into Departments and zones subject to special rules in conformity with Article 329 of this constitution.  Their creation and boundaries will be decreed by the national Congress.  The Departments will be divided into autonomous municipalities administered by officers elected by the people, as governed by law.

Also due to be modified is Article 329. It currently gives the government the power to develop economic plans, in consultation with its citizens and to set up whatever mechanisms are necessary to achieve these goals. El Heraldo does not give us the new language of this constitutional modification, but it will be the key to understanding these new special development regimes.  However, later in the day, Tiempo published the proposed language of Article 329 which seems to contain no changes to the existing language.

The new law would modify Article 303 of the Honduran Constitution, changing the rules governing how justice is administered.  The new Article 303 would read:

The ability to impose justice comes from the people and it is offered freely for the state, by magistrates and independent judges, only subject to the Constitution and the laws.  The Judicial branch is made up of a Supreme Court, special jurisdictions in regions of the national territory subject to special rules created by the Constitution of the Republic, by appeals courts, the courts and other dependencies indicated by law.

Again the modification here is to add the reference to special rules zones.  The key will be how justice in those special rules zones articulates with the Judicial branch, which notably is not spelled out in this change.

Along with Hernandez, the new law is being pushed forward by Congressman Rodolfo Irias Navas, a National party member and owner of TV stations (Channel 8 in Tela, Channel 45 in La Ceiba) and radio stations (Communicaciones del Atlantico, Radio El Patio of La Ceiba, Stereo 92 FM, Stereo 102.5 F, and Romantico 103.5 in La Ceiba, Radio Aguan in Colon, 91.5 and 92.7 FM in Tela).

(Irias Navas was also one of the spokespeople for the 2009 coup, who kept saying that the international community wasn't listening and would understand if they would only listen.)

Anyone who can read should see that this is not anything like the previous legislation, and that it's not about real development.  It's a law designed to benefit the monied class in Honduras that's responsible for underdevelopment, the class that sees the government of Honduras as its reliable income stream.

We're not the only ones to see it that way.

Analyst Raul Pineda pointed out that the reason this law is being rushed through is the urgent need for some in the oligarchy who owned or speculatively purchased lands they expected to be appropriated under the unconstitutional model cities law, to sell those properties for financial reasons.

Or as he put it: it's because a few people need to do business.