Ricardo Maduro is a relatively young businessman, highly intelligent, bilingual, with international perspective and skills to ‘sell’ Honduras abroad. For his part, Pineda Ponce is an over 70 year old scholar, mainly of rural perspective with little international experience –typical of people from small towns- and with a successful political career for he is the current president of Congress.

In a past interview we spoke about the implications of Pineda Ponce’s age for the people. Can we still say age is a disadvantage for the election?

Perhaps but the truths is not so long ago Nicaraguans elected 73 year old Bolaños and it seems age is no longer a make or break factor. For instance, Carlos Menem, over 70, is slated to launch his presidential candidacy in Argentina. Perhaps we will have to change the assessing parameters. Pineda has always been aware of this and launched a commercial showing him surrounded by young people…I figure he did so to show he could communicate and identify himself with them very well, however, the commercial emphasized the difference between him and the youths.

According to a CID Gallup survey, electoral trends were measured through simulated votes and revealed votes and both confirmed Maduro’s victory.

Yes, Maduro would win by 9 to 12 points. Pineda has made a great effort to show that Maduro is not a native Honduran for he was born in Panama and in fact that campaign has served as a sort of boomerang that has returned and labeled Pinesa as a negative figure. He was badly regarded trying to gain advantage from that side.

What were the major themes of political campaigns?

The major themes were violence and crime for there has been an unprecedented crime wave in the country. People believed in Ricardo Maduro’s pledges to eradicate and ‘declare war on crime’ because his younger son was killed in a kidnap attempt in the city of San Pedro Sula. This situation had a strong impact on Maduro and illustrated people the level of crime in the country. Unfortunately for him, Pineda tried to emulate Maduro and also appeared as the candidate that would also crack down on crime but he was not persuasive enough.

Otro de los ejes principales de campaña fue la educación. Honduras sigue siendo uno de los países más pobres de la región, y el 40% de su población adulta es analfabeta. Por un lado Maduro estuvo prometiendo inversiones fuertes para sacar a Honduras de ese hoyo en que estaba, y Pineda Ponce, nuevamente un poco tarde, anunció después que él como profesor tenía preocupación por eso y que iba a tratar de arreglarlo. Pero de nuevo, quien lograba la credibilidad era Maduro.

What is the explanation for the fact that Carlos Flores enjoys one of the highest approval ratings in the region whereas the likely winner seems to be the opposition candidate?

Flores enjoyed a situation similar to the one Bush’s experiences in a crisis situation. In 1998 Hurricane Mitch took a toll of over ten thousand residents of the capital district who in less than two to three hours drowned in a river that is usually one and a half meters depth and crosses the downtown Tegucigalpa. Then Carlos Flores took the country’s reins and succeeded in obtaining considerable international aid and handling that money with total honesty. In general, after aid arrives, money is engulfed in corruption scandals but this was not the case in Honduras. Besides, he also managed to avert epidemics. So he rose as a leader and since then has succeeded in maintaining that position. He is a liberal, however, his party seems not to last in power for long.

After the election, what about governance?

I think we must be prepared for tough times next year in Honduras. After Haiti, Honduras is the continent’s poorest country and ruling under these circumstances, with soaring unemployment and poverty rates, will not be an easy task.

Apart from the fights against crime and delinquency, Maduro will try to ‘sell’ the country abroad as a good place to invest, to set up textile factories, among other things. So it is left to be seen whether he achieves it or not.

How would you describe the pre-electoral atmosphere in Honduras?

I think some abstention will occur but not significant. In Honduras abstention usually surrounds 25% and that is what estimates show. So one out of 4 registered voters may not cast ballots. Now this percentage has been so for a long time and so we can link it to illiteracy and ignorance for that same uneducated people live in houses without electricity and have less knowledge to cast ballots. Not to mention motivation.

Honduras shows great democratic stability. How is it preparing for the elections from the point of view of organization?

Now we have implemented a so-called ‘house voting’, that is to say people voting close to the place where they live. People are eligible to vote at the age of 18 and have a relatively sophisticated system: three voting papers will be used as Congress and Mayor will also be included in the election. The voting hours start at 7 am until 5 pm, around 10 hours.

The OAS has sent a small team of observers who have already stated they regard the process as transparent, something people also agree for fraud is totally discarded. In general, Honduras have a civic vocation. Even when the country’s image may be closer to a ‘Banana Republic’, the truth is these parties have existed for long and while the intervention of the Armed Forces cannot be denied for they hampered the normal democratic process in the past, this is the tradition. I think the process will be peaceful, with normal turnout and by midnight results are likely to announce a winner.