US embassy cable - 05TEGUCIGALPA752

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 TEGUCIGALPA 000752 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR WHA, WHA/PPC, WHA/USOAS, AND WHA/CEN 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/07/2015 
TAGS: PGOV, PREL, KDEM, ECON, ETRD, SNAR, KJUS, PINR, HO 
SUBJECT: HONDURAN PRIMARIES:  LOBO AND ZELAYA'S TICKETS 
EACH WON OVER 100 OUT OF 128 OF CONGRESSIONAL SLOTS 
 
REF: A. TEGUCIGALPA 411 
     B. TEGUCIGALPA 410 
     C. TEGUCIGALPA 393 
 
Classified By: Acting Deputy Chief of Mission Francisco Palmieri; 
Reasons 1.4 (b) and (d). 
 
1. (U) With vote counting (and re-counting) over, the 
official results are now final: President of Congress 
Porfirio "Pepe" Lobo Sosa won the February 20 Nationalist 
Party primary, beating his chief opponent, Mayor of 
Tegucigalpa Miguel Pastor 62.3 to 34.9 percent.  Liberal 
Party candidate Mel Zelaya won with 56.3 percent, topping an 
eight-candidate field.  Zelaya's Liberal Party primary drew 
900,000 voters, while the participation in the National Party 
primary was 800,000 voters.  As a result, Zelaya out-polled 
Lobo 440,000 to 420,000.  Overall voter participation in the 
primaries was 46 percent.  Trailing Zelaya in the Liberal 
Party,  Jaime Rosenthal obtained 18.7 percent and Gabriela 
Nunez 11.7 percent.  Puerto Cortes Mayor Marlon Lara exceeded 
expectations and obtained 5.7 percent, while 2001 nominee 
Rafael Pineda had 4.3 percent, an extremely poor showing. 
 
Lobo and Zelaya Supporters Dominate Congressional Tickets 
--------------------------------------------- ------------ 
 
2. (U) Lobo's supporters won 107 of 128 National Party 
congressional slots, with Pastor's supporters winning the 
remaining 21.  Zelaya's supporters won 102 of 128 Liberal 
Party congressional slots, with Rosenthal's supporters 
winning 13, Nunez's supporters winning six, Pineda's 
supporters winning three, Lara's supporters winning two, Hugo 
Noe's supporter's winning one, and Jorge Reina's supporters 
winning one.  A significant percentage of voters voted for 
the entire ticket of Lobo and Zelaya, with another 
significant group voting only for some of Lobo/Zelaya's 
congressional candidates, leaving other slots blank, which 
helped lead to the overwhelming victory of the leading 
presidential candidates' slates.  That base of support made 
it very hard for strong individual congressional candidates 
from losing factions to break through in the primaries.  This 
result ironically complicates efforts to bridge internal 
divisions in the parties, because losing slates had little to 
gain by quickly supporting the winning candidate, since few 
of their supporters will be part of the general election 
tickets. 
 
As Well as Key Mayoral Races 
---------------------------- 
 
3. (U) In Tegucigalpa, Lobo's mayoral candidate Ricardo 
Alvarez beat Pastor's candidate Nasry "Tito" Asfura, 58.4 to 
39.8 percent.  In San Pedro Sula, Lobo's mayoral candidate 
Arturo "Tuky" Bendana beat Pastor's candidate Oscar Kilgore 
49.1 to 37.7 percent, a decisive defeat for the incumbent. 
On the Liberal side, in Tegucigalpa Zelaya's candidate 
Enrique "Kike" Ortez Sequeira edged out Rosenthal's candidate 
Eliseo Castro 39.5 to 33.6 percent.  In San Pedro Sula, 
Zelaya's candidate Rodolfo Padilla Sunceri beat Rosenthal's 
candidate Harry Panting 34.9 to 22 percent.  Once again, the 
dominant victories of Lobo and Zelaya helped carry their 
mayoral candidates to victory. 
 
4. (SBU) In La Ceiba, Pastor's candidate Ramon Leva beat 
Lobo's candidate Carmen de Munoz, bucking the national trend. 
 That victory, combined with a strong congressional showing 
by Pastor supporters in the Atlantida Department (which 
includes La Ceiba) by winning four of eight slots, including 
the first three, has established Pastor ally Rodolfo "Fito" 
Irias Navas, a charter member of the National Party "dark 
side," as the National Party godfather in Atlantida. 
 
Pollsters Earn an A 
------------------- 
 
4. (U) The pre-election polls turned out to be very accurate; 
they were spot on Zelaya's vote and if anything they 
understated the eventual margin of victory by Lobo.  They 
were also very accurate on the mayoral races.  This bodes 
well for upcoming polling for the general election. 
 
Irregularities, But No Pattern of Fraud 
--------------------------------------- 
 
5. (C) Despite an relatively clean bill of health from the 
Organization of American States' Election Observation 
Mission, the count was marred by minor irregularities at 
specific voting sites and a large number of recounts (25 
percent of Liberal Party sites and 15 percent of National 
Party sites according to the OAS).  Catholic Church officials 
shared with the Embassy that it had received numerous and 
substantiated reports from its priests and adherents of 
vote-buying by the Pepe Lobo campaign. 
 
6. (SBU) Comment: The Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) took 
some heat in the post-election period, but performed better 
than expected given its problems.  With the Presidency of the 
TSE switching from Nationalist Jacobo Hernandez to Liberal 
 
SIPDIS 
Aristides Mejia May 17 for a one-year period, there is still 
much work to be done to prepare for the general elections. 
Technical assistance funded by the USG, which was critical in 
the primaries, will be a key factor in ensuring the TSE is 
able to conduct the general elections (and vote count) 
successfully.  End Comment. 
Palmer