With the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) nearing completion of its first pass through Honduras’ election results, a more subtle (albeit still incomplete) analysis has become possible. What is certain is that the National Party won an unprecedented victory. What remains in question is precisely why. Answering this question requires a closer examination at voter participation trends in previous elections and inferential analysis of what took place in 2009. Below, I first present the results, before offering a hypothesis to explain them.

The Results

Porfirio Lobo and the National Party won a landslide victory at every level of government. In the presidential elections, the National Party took upwards of 55 percent of votes cast, while the Liberal Party—long the numerically dominant party in Honduras—could not even muster 40 percent. In the Congress, the National Party won over 70 seats of a total of 128. And, in the mayoral races, the National Party has carried more than 200 of 298 municipalities. The final tallies may differ in a handful of races, but the general trend—a National Party routing of the Liberal Party—will hold.

To put this trouncing in perspective: since political liberalization and civilian elections in 1981, no presidential candidate has received 54 percent of valid votes (not to speak of total votes cast). Furthermore, consider the last time that the National Party won the elections (only the second time since 1981). The winning presidential candidate, Ricardo Maduro, won with less than 50 percent of votes cast (52 percent of valid votes), and the National Party obtained neither an outright majority in Congress (it got 61 seats) nor among mayoralties (it won 148 of 298 municipalities).

In fact, after both the 2001 and 2005 elections, the winning party won only a plurality in Congress, forcing it to form coalitions to pass legislation. For the next four years, the National Party will not face this obstacle. This could further marginalize the three smaller parties (Democratic Unification party—UD, the Christian Democratic Party of Honduras—DC and the Innovation and Unity Party—PINU). Moreover, the UD’s very existence stands in question, given sharp internal divisions about whether to participate in the elections (the party decided to participate only a week before the election) and the party’s predictably miserable showing.