Honduras’ Suazo Pressure to Hold Primary Elections

Pressures are building on Honduras’ unpredictable President Roberto Suazo Cordova to ease his grip on the country’s electoral machinery and end a political crisis.

Spokesmen for the country’s labor movement are calling for primary elections before November’s presidential election and have threatened a general strike if their demand is not heeded. High military officials are known to have counseled Suazo to listen to the workers.

However, Suazo, who is suspected of trying, in effect, to prolong his four-year term by selecting his own successor, declines to commit himself. Constitutionally, he cannot succeed himself.

“Honduras cannot be the monopoly of personal and arbitrary ambitions of a few,” the president said in a speech this week. It was assumed that he was speaking of his political rivals, not himself.

Chief Justice Victim

Outwardly, the dispute has involved Suazo and presidential aspirants in the Honduran Congress. The main victim so far has been a Supreme Court chief justice who was thrown in jail by Suazo after being appointed by Congress, where a majority opposes the president.

The standoff has been an embarrassment for the United States, which uses Honduras as a base for spy flights over El Salvador, as host to the anti-Sandinista Nicaraguan rebels, and as the site for a continuing series of military maneuvers.

The Reagan Administration touts Honduras as a reliable ally and a model of developing democracy helped by U.S. aid and advice. But close observers of Honduran politics say that all signs point to continued domination of the Tegucigalpa government by the military. Both sides in the political conflict look to the armed forces to arbitrate the dispute.

“It’s not yet by any means a pristine democracy,” a ranking official at the U.S. Embassy said. “The Honduran politicians create a mess and then look for someone--usually the armed forces--to bail them out.”

U.S. Opposes a Coup

U.S. officials are obsessed with preventing a coup here because it would dismay many of the congressmen who must approve aid to Honduras.

“Suazo should finish his term,” the ranking U.S. official said. “We want to see the election take place.”

The president vetoed a recent congressional proposal to institute primary elections, which would skirt the influence of the electoral tribunal that Suazo controls through political appointees.

The tribunal settles party disputes, including disagreements over lists of delegates to nominating conventions. Candidates favored by Suazo have emerged triumphant not only from the convention of his own Liberal Party but also of the opposition National Party.

Suazo, under military pressure, is said to be considering a move to let all comers run in the November elections, regardless of the convention results.

A free-for-all election would further confuse the already jumbled political landscape. Hondurans who are accustomed to voting party symbols rather than personalities would be confronted with a host of candidates, several of whom would claim to represent the same party.

Comic Opera Touch

The debate has something of a comic opera atmosphere--Suazo once employed a soothsayer, who predicted that the president would remain in office beyond his term--but it also has its serious side. Lawyer Ramon Valladares, who was named by the president’s opponents to be Supreme Court chief justice, remains imprisoned after more than a month. He served as chief justice for only two hours.

“I never thought it would last so long,” Valladares said in an interview in his cell.

The Congress, led by presidential candidate Efrain Bu Giron, named Valladares and four other justices in an attempt to gain control of the country’s electoral tribunal. The Supreme Court holds the swing vote on the tribunal.

Valladares, 66, faces treason charges that carry a penalty of up to 30 years in prison. He spends his days reading, listening to other prisoners complain of the slow pace of justice in their cases, and eating food brought from home.

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Military the Key

Whether Valladares stays in jail for a long time will depend on the military sorting out its conflicting options.

Restrained by the United States, the officer corps is divided on how to deal with Suazo. Younger officers want a hard line and say that perhaps Suazo, who has suffered one heart attack, could be persuaded to discover new health problems and to leave office quietly.

The armed forces chief, Gen. Walter Lopez, has been resisting these pressures, pleading that some constitutional resolution to the problem must be found. Newspapers and the president’s political opponents charge that Suazo has bought off senior officers.

There is, in any case, no civilian institution with the power to make constitutional rulings. By default, the army is the final authority.