US embassy cable - 05TEGUCIGALPA2350

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