POLITICS-HONDURAS: Elections Put Gender Issue on Agenda

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Thelma Mejia TEGUCIGALPA, Nov 28 1997 (IPS) - The campaign for Sunday’s presidential elections in Honduras has put women’s questions on the agenda of the leading candidates, who have demonstrated, however, their scarce knowledge with respect to gender issues.

The candidate of the governing Liberal Party (PL), Carlos Flores, slated to win Sunday, as well as his main rival, Nora Melgar of the National Party (PN), stressed the virtues of women and promised to take them into account.

The conventional discourse of the candidates situated women squarely within the family setting. While they conceded that women could work and carve out new spaces for themselves in society, they underlined that full female realisation lay in women’s traditional role within the family.

Nevertheless, the presence of the first female presidential candidate in the 176 years since Honduras became an independent state forced politicians to introduce a new element into their speeches, in contrast with previous campaigns in which women were only addressed as potential votes.

Melgar, the widow of General Juan Alberto Melgar, who headed a military dictatorship in the mid-1970s, has changed the tone of the campaign without even proposing to do so. The PN candidate is no expert on gender issues, but those close to her say she has gained a better grasp on the question than her adversaries.

Melgar “has improved greatly with respect to these questions. She reads documents on the gender situation, attends the events to which she is invited and corrects her campaign managers when they distort concepts relating to women,” one of the candidate’s closest friends, Marlen Zelaya, told IPS.

For example, Melgar proposes a law on gender equity, to guarantee equal opportunities for women and men.

Melgar told IPS that gender “is not a question of sexes, but of opportunities and equality. Guaranteeing fair and equitable access for men and women will be my first challenge if I reach the presidency.”

Flores was also forced to support the idea of an equal opportunity law, although his definition of gender has not yet been made clear.

The candidate – who leads Melgar in the polls by 15 to 20 points – was unable to explain the concept of gender equality, simply stating that he loved the women of his country the same way he loved his family and his mother.

“But we must not believe just because the women’s issue is in fashion that all women are fit to govern or be part of a government. For that it is necessary to have capacity and strive to establish one’s own merits,” he stressed.

Women’s organisations took advantage of the electoral campaign and Flores’ position as Speaker of Congress to press the legislature, after several years of struggle, to pass a law cracking down on domestic violence.

Analyst Efrain Diaz underlined that although the gender issue was only used as a key to earning votes, the precedent established by the electoral campaign would make it impossible for the winner to wipe it off the social agenda.

“Little by little, women have carved out new spaces, and it is clear that they are not willing” to yield the ground they have gained, nor to accept politicking with their issues, said Diaz.

“The opposition was surprising” when Flores’ publicity team broadcast spots insinuating that the ruling party candidate had the support of women thanks to his role in promoting the law against domestic violence, he added.

A full one-fourth of households in Honduras are female-headed, but women have never been taken into account by the government. Although the vice-president is currently a woman, Guadalupe Jerezano, President Carlos Reina does not allow her to fulfill her role as acting head of government when he is outside the country.

The platform of Melgar, a 56-year-old teacher, has been based on a continuation of the current government’s neo-liberal economic programme, with modernisation and decentralisation of the state and a stronger emphasis on “social” questions. For example, she has promised to build low-cost housing and invest in human resources.

The 47-year-old Flores, meanwhile, an industrial engineer with a post-graduate degree in international economy and finances from the University of Louisiana in the United States, proposes a “new agenda” based on infrastructure, tourism, the exploitation of natural resources, maquiladoras, energy and telecommunications, also within the framework of the neo-liberal economic model.

For a large part of the press Flores would be the “best statesman” of all the candidates. But for others he represents “a danger to freedom of expression.” Five complaints of threats issued by those close to him have been filed with human rights organisations.

At a meeting with diplomats in which IPS participated, an analyst said Flores was sort of a “nebulous” figure for Hondurans. “We do not know if we will have a great statesman who will successfully guide us to the new millenium, or whether we are on the verge of discovering a new authoritarian dictator.”

Flores served as a key minister under former president Roberto Suazo Cordova (1982-85), who was accused of human rights violations. Although he resigned from that administration because he did not share “certain criteria,” many of his current advisers had ties to that government.

Three small parties are also running candidates in Sunday’s elections, disputing the position of third political force in Honduras: the Christian Democratic Party, the Party of Social Democratic Innovation and Unity, and the leftist Democratic Unification (UD).

This is the second time in nearly three decades that the Honduran left is fielding candidates. The UD is comprised of a group of former political exiles who returned home after an amnesty enacted early this decade, as well as prominent intellectuals and leaders of social organisations.

Some 2.8 million voters will be able to choose a new president, mayors and deputies to Congress and the Central American Parliament separately for the first time Sunday.