President Mauricio Villeda Headquarters Tegucigalpa, MDC Political position Centre-right | Founder Céleo Arias Ideology Liberalism (Honduras) | |
Founded February 5, 1891; 126 years ago | ||
The Liberal Party of Honduras (Spanish: Partido Liberal de Honduras) is a center-right liberal political party in Honduras that was founded in 1891. The party is a member of the Liberal International. The PLH is identified with the color red and white, as the flag Francisco Morazan used in most of his military campaigns during time of the Central American Federal Republic.
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2001 elections
At the legislative elections, held on 25 November 2001, the party won 40.8% of the popular vote and 55 out of 128 seats in Congress. Its candidate at the presidential elections, Rafael Pineda Ponce won 44.3%, but was defeated by Ricardo Maduro of the National Party of Honduras.
2005 elections
The PLH won the closely contested 2005 presidential race, but at the moment the PNH has a majority in the National Congress due to an alliance with the Christian Democrats (Democracia Cristiana).
In the general election of 27 November 2005, the party won 62 out of 128 seats in the National Congress; and its Presidential candidate, Manuel Zelaya, polled 49.9% to defeat the PNH's Porfirio Pepe Lobo, restoring the PLH as the presidential party. He was inaugurated on 27 January 2006.
Elected as a conservative, Zelaya shifted dramatically to the political left during his presidency, forging an alliance with the Hugo Chávez linked ALBA angering conservatives and his own Liberal Party. He was deposed by coup d'état in 2009 and replaced by Roberto Micheletti, also of the Liberal Party.
2009 elections
At the 2009 elections, the first since the 2009 Honduran coup d'état which removed Manuel Zelaya from power, the Liberal Party was heavily defeated by the National Party candidate for president, Porfirio Lobo Sosa winning the presidency with, according to the Electoral Tribunal, over 1,212,846 votes and 56.56% of the national total of valid votes (in all participation as acknowledged by the tribunal was of 41%) compared with 816,874 votes and 38.1% of the national total for Elvin Santos who was the Liberal candidate, and in the elections to the National Congress of Honduras the Liberal Party of Honduras won 45 seats from its previous 61, out of 128 seats in total. The elections were held under a tense political atmosphere without the accustomed OAS observers and under a civil rights restriction decree, with the elected president Zelaya under military siege in the Brazilian embassy at Tegucigalpa. Sectors opposed to the 2009 coup claim the participation was much less than reported by the authorities, but this claim has not been verified.