HONDURAN ELECTIONS: Mayoral Race in Danli Too Close

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 TEGUCIGALPA 002350

SIPDIS

STATE FOR WHA/CEN, WHA/PPC, WHA/USOAS, AND DRL/PHD
STATE PASS AID FOR LAC/CEN AND DCHA/DG

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV PREL KDEM HO
SUBJECT: HONDURAN ELECTIONS: Mayoral Race in Danli Too Close
to Call

REF: Tegucigalpa X and previous


1. Summary: Emboffs met recently with the two leading
mayoral candidates from Danli Municipality, Jorge Carcamo of
the National Party and Luz Victoria Oliva Lobo of the Liberal
Party. Danli is the second largest municipality in Honduras
with 180,000 inhabitants. The Liberal Party has held power
for the past 22 years. According to the primaries, there are
19,000 people registered with the Liberal Party and 9,000
with the National Party. Despite the disparity in numbers,
the race now appears to be close. Both candidates view
similar development issues as the key issues for the
election. Mr. Carcamo has been in politics for 24 years, but
has never formally held office; Ms. Lobo is new to politics
but has worked for the government her entire career. Both
believe their party will win. End Summary.

National Party Candidate
--------------


2. National Party candidate Jorge Carcamo owns several, large
farms and holds a degree in agricultural engineering. His
platform is based on economic development for the Danli area
and improving education. Carcamo focused on unemployment and
seeks more investment in the countryside, moving from
subsistence farming to crop diversification and improved
irrigation methods. He also seeks improved access to potable
water.


3. Improving school infrastructure and increasing the number
of young people in schools is an important goal for Carcamo.
He stated that 40% of local children do not attend any
school, and many of them go for the free lunch. He advocates
for a public awareness campaign to convince rural parents of
the importance of education for their children and for making
the school vacation time coincide with harvest time. Women's
issues, particularly helping single mothers with children who
work on the street, are a priority for him also. In
addition, he wants to create a "Virtual Library" for Danli
youth to expand their horizons through the establishment of a
free Internet program for local youth.


4. Carcamo promotes capacity building and giving the people
the resources to address their own issues locally. He
believes that the Liberal party is out of touch with the
pueblo, that they don't understand nor have they met the
needs of the people. He also believes that previous Liberal
Party mayors have been corrupt and would review the books of
previous administrations if elected. He wants an accounting
of the 40,000,000 Lempira from taxes given to Danli last year
by the national government.

Liberal Candidate
--------------


5. Luz Victoria Oliva Lobo is a retired Ministry of
Education district director and holds a degree is in rural
development. Her platform focuses on specific plans for
addressing the development problems of the Danli area.
Quoting from a FUNDEMON document, in part financed by USAID,
she spoke of concrete solutions for economic and
environmental aspects of regional integration. Interestingly
enough, her first statements were that the politicians of
Danli had done many studies on what Danli needs, how to
improve its situation, but then would ignore the findings and
move on to/do something different. (Comment: The previous
administrations have all been liberal - her party. End
Comment) She advocated the establishment of a local branch of
the national university (UNAH - Universidad Nacional
Autonomous de Honduras) for technical education to advance
local industrialization. She mentioned other possible
avenues of technical training, such as the Zamarano Institute
for Agriculture - but training for technicians not for
engineers. She also focused on capacity building for local
residents, including formal and non-formal education for
community members. She is especially interested in capacity
building of women and advocated that teachers to be better
trained in teaching methodology and curriculum development.


6. Lobo focused on the importance of environmental
protection for the area and suggested identifying a specific
organically grown coffee niche market which is
environmentally friendly produced, and mentioned regional
integration with Nicaragua to address environmental
protection issues. Lobo also emphasized ecotourism to
promote economic development through developing mountain
climbing routes with nice haciendas for travelers.


7. She spoke of the strategic position of Danli, emphasizing
the importance of connecting the area with roads to select
port cities and the borders, providing adequate outlets for
Honduran exports.


8. Lobo expects fraud in the upcoming election due to
irregularities with voter identification. She alleges that
the Registro Nacional de las Personas gave ID cards to
National Party supporters, but destroyed the IDs of Liberal
Party supporters. In addition, she mentioned that 1,317
voter applications were tampered with by removing photos.
There is an ongoing investigation.


9. Both said crime and narco-trafficing are not issues in
this local election.


10. Comment: Both candidates touched on similar issues.
Caracamo's issues seemed much more concrete and focused on
the actual issues and problems on Danli. He describes
himself as a campesino. Caracmo's father was in politics for
many years, Caracmo believes he has gained a good
understanding of the issues. He is practical and appears to
have a good grasp of the issues, but he does not a strong
platform on how to solve them. As with many National party
members in this election, he appears confident that he will
win. Though Lobo is new to politics, her background in
education and rural development make her a strong candidate.
She has macro economic solutions to local problems but with a
large price tag and a long timeline. Although she describes
herself as part of the pueblo, she does not appear to be as
closely in touch with the area or its people as Carcamo. The
numbers from the primary suggest that the Liberal Party will
win; however, Carcamo's growing popularity could make this a
close race. Interestingly, when asked if she thought she
would win, Ms. Lobo was much more hesitant and said that due
to the numbers she should win. It will be interesting
contest - especially to see if the general public apathy and
the Nationalist Party's ability to mobilize its voters do
indeed hand them an upset victory. End Comment.

Ford