Elecciones Primarias Honduras 2021: entre una reforma inconclusa y lecciones aprendidas

Abstract

What was traditionally considered a democratic exercise without major drawbacks, the primary elections held on March 14 with the participation of the three majority political forces, were characterized not only by the challenges involved in organizing elections in the midst of a pandemic, but also due to the pending legislative and institutional reform processes in electoral matters initiated since the political crisis originated in the general elections of 2017. In this context, the objective of this analysis is to reflect on the main stages of the primary electoral process conducted by the new electoral bodies, emphasizing the events of the pre-electoral stage that conditioned the development of the electoral day and the presentation of claims in the post-electoral stage. The analysis is situated in the primary process, but at the same time it reveals the latent risk that the events are repeated in the general elections of November 28, 2021 due to the short time for the achievement of partisan consensus that give way to the approval and implementation of reforms between the end of the primary process on April 13 and the initiation of the general electoral process by the National Electoral Council on May 27.