Honduras chooses presidential candidates for 2009

Yesterday saw the final tallies of the Honduran presidential primaries, which were pushed back from their original date due to flooding, and were even threatened to be thwarted by continuous threats of teacher strikes.

Nonetheless, the ballots were cast peacefully all across the country and the presidential candidates of the two major parties were determined; Porfirio "Pepe" Lobo won the primary for the conservative national party (PNH) by a landslide while Mauricio Villeda eked out 52% of the liberal party (PLH) votes to seal the nomination over the erstwhile PLH front runner and current vice-president, Elvin Santos (who is technically barred from running since he served temporarily as commander in chief during a brief absence of President Zelaya).

I haven't seen any reliable polls on the general election outlook yet, but all reliable sources suggest that Lobo's margin of victory and his "change" oriented campaign in the face of an abysmally low Mel Zelaya approval rating put his campaign in a very strong position as the marathon general election campaigns begin in earnest (the election season in Honduras appears to be one of the longest in Latin America, as the general election takes place nearly 12 months from today).

Both nominees are 60 years old, and neither have held major political offices before (though Lobo lost the presidential bid to Zelaya in 2005). Notably, both primary winners share their "platform" with female running mates, ensuring that a female will occupy the vice-presidency after November 2009 (though this will not be the first such occasion for Honduras).

Source: La Prensa, IFES Election Guide, Reuters, PepeLobopresidente.com