Honduras: Parties stay in power thanks to 'blind vote'

Parties stay in power thanks to 'blind vote'. However, in the opinion of journalist Manuel Torres, civil society in Honduras is gaining ground.

"It is a new and more vulnerable Honduras that will be holding general elections on 27 November. We have ratified the Free Trade Agreement with the United States, the DR-CAFTA. As a consequence of the destruction of agriculture, this country is becoming more urbanised, with an accelerated expansion of the main cities. The concept of family is changing rapidly. We don’t have as much leeway as we once did to make mistakes, and politicians would have to be aware of this", says Honduran journalist Manuel Torres. 

It’s all the same

Manuel Torres: The two large, traditional parties can still count on those that follow them blindly. Photo: Eva Rasmussen.

For the first time in Honduran history internal primaries were held in the political parties as a way to nominate their candidates, and thirty percent of all candidates are supposed to be women. The parties complied with the first part, and duly held primaries, but these did not lead to the expected change. 

As for the thirty percent women candidates, not a single party followed the letter of the law. The Supreme Electoral Court has simply chosen to ignore this evident breach, and feminist organisations have introduced a claim before the National Human Rights Commission and the Public Ministry.

The race includes three small parties, two of which are centre-right, the other being left. The other two, the Liberal Party and the National Party are large and traditional, each being over a century old. 

"Politically it doesn’t matter which of them wins. They’re much the same. The difference between them is historical only", Manuel Torres told us. 

"Porfirio Lobo, the nationalist candidate of the party currently in power, is trying to attract votes with a hard line on juvenile delinquency. He is calling for nothing less than the reintroduction of the death penalty. Manuel Zelaya, the liberal candidate, doesn’t want to go to such an extreme, and in fact tries to present himself as a humanist. He talks about empowerment of the citizenry and promises more participatory spaces in society, but he doesn’t really have a specific proposal to put before voters."

Manuel Torres is of the opinion that "The real struggle is not between the two big parties, but rather between the effort being made on the part of civil society to create a participatory democracy, and the traditional model that takes refuge in a representative democracy, in which the old parties tend to block popular participation. The elections are really about who will be taking the lead in the future political decision-making process."

New times…

"We are talking here about new ways of making politics, a participatory democracy in which local sectors of society can demand the authorities to be accountable. It will be a social citizenry and not a political citizenry, one that is going to fight corruption", argues Torres.

"There has been some very good progress, but it isn’t reflected in the outcome of the primaries", laments Torres, adding that the dominating traditional parties survive thanks to the 'blind vote', that is, the unconditional historical followers who vote for ‘their’ party without giving it much thought. 

"The traditional parties can count on a hard-core of thirty to forty percent of the votes, made up of their clientele, their proselytising followers. The loyal voter is rewarded with job opportunities and the possibility of living a bit off the fat of the State. However, I think we will live to see the end of this system based on patronage".

"Honduran society is on the move, in particular due to migration. Today some 800,000 Hondurans live outside the country, most of them in the US. This implies that with every passing day there is less dependency upon the State. Further, in the last few years, the State has found itself much reduced due to the structural adjustments. In brief, there isn’t that much fat left to offer the loyal voter."

… and old 

"The Honduran communications media normally act in tandem with the old political parties, and during the electoral campaign tend to become little better than political pamphlets", says Torres, who a few years back was fired from the newspaper 'El Heraldo' for attempting to exercise critical journalism. 

"The electoral months are bad for freedom of expression in Honduras. The media owners are part of the power structure, and there are always journalists who like privileges. Unfortunately society has developed in such a way that the right to information belongs to the media as an institution, and not to the population."