Honduran
Government Honduras is administratively
divided into eighteen departments (Atlántida, Choluteca,
Colón, Comayagua, Copán, Cortés, El Paraíso, Francisco Morazán,
Gracias a Dios, Intibucá, Islas de la Bahía (Bay Islands), La Paz,
Lempira, Ocotepeque, Olancho, Santa Bárbara, Valle, and Yoro), each
with a designated department capital (cabecera). The
president of the republic freely appoints, and may freely remove,
governors for each department. Departmental governors represent the
executive branch in official acts in their department and serve as
the tie between the executive branch and other national agencies and
institutions that might have delegations working in the department.
Each governor may freely appoint and remove a secretary to assist
him or her. If a governor is absent more than five days, the mayor
of the departmental capital substitutes for the governor. The costs
of running the departmental governments fall under the budget of the
Ministry of Government and Justice.
The departments are further divided into 291
municipalities (municipios) nationwide, including a Central
District consisting of the cities of Tegucigalpa and Comayagüela. A
municipality in Honduras may include more than one city within its
boundaries, and is therefore similar to the jurisdiction of county
in the United States. In addition to cities, municipalities may also
include aldeas (villages) and caseríos (hamlets),
which are scattered concentrations of populations outside urban
areas. The urbanized cities may be divided into smaller divisions
known as colonias (colonies) and barrios (neighborhoods).
The
municipalities are administered by elected corporations,
deliberative organs that are accountable to the courts of justice
for abuses, and are supposed to be autonomous or independent of the
central government's powers. The municipal corporations consist of a
mayor (alcalde), who is the paramount executive authority in
a municipality, and a municipal council that varies in size
depending on the population of the municipality. Those
municipalities with a population of less than 5,000 have four
council members, those with a population of between 5,000 and 10,000
have six, and those with a population between 10,000 and 80,000 have
eight. All the department capitals, regardless of their population,
and municipalities with a population of more than 80,000 have ten
council members.
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The
municipal corporations meet at least two times per month in
ordinary sessions, but special sessions may be called by the
mayor or by at least two council
members. |
Each municipal
corporation has a secretary, freely appointed and removed by a
majority of the members of the corporation, and a treasurer, named
by the corporation at the request of the mayor. Municipalities with
annual revenue of more than one million lempiras are to have an
auditor named by the municipal corporation; however, in the early
1990s, the majority of Honduran municipalities had an annual revenue
of less than one million lempiras.
The
constitution sets forth several provisions regarding the
municipalities. According to Article 299, the economic and social
development of the municipalities must form part of the nation's
development plans. Each municipality is also to have sufficient
communal land in order to ensure its existence and development.
Citizens of municipalities are entitled to form civic associations,
federation, or confederations in order to ensure the improvement and
development of the municipalities. In general, income and investment
taxes in a municipality are paid into the municipal treasury.
In 1990 a new
Law of Municipalities covering both departmental and municipal
administration superseded the previous municipal law issued in 1927.
The new law set forth the numerous rights and responsibilities of
the municipalities and public administration at the municipal level.
It also outlined the concept of municipal autonomy, characterized by
free elections; free public administration and decisions; the
collection and investment of resources with special attention on the
preservation of the environment; the development, approval, and
administration of a municipal budget; the organization and
management of public services; the right of the municipality to
create its own administrative structure; and municipal control over
natural resources. The law also outlines twenty-one functions of the
municipal corporations, which include the following
responsibilities: organizing public administration and services,
developing and implementing a municipal budget, appointing public
employees and naming needed public commissions, planning urban
development, and consulting the public through plebiscites on
important municipal issues and through open public meetings with
representatives of the various social sectors of the municipality.
Under the law,
each municipality has a Municipal Development Council named by the
corporation and consisting of representatives of the various
economic and social sectors of the municipality. The Municipal
Development Council functions in an advisory capacity by providing
the corporations with information and input for making decisions.
The law also calls for a special law to be enacted to regulate the
organization and functioning of a national Institute of Municipal
Development to promote the integrated development of municipalities
in Honduras.
Traditionally,
the central government in Honduras, whether civilian or military,
has dominated local government, and some observers maintain that
local mayors and municipal corporations have served largely as
administrative arms of the central government. With the return to
democratic rule in 1982, however, there has been a shift, at least
in theory, to promote the economic development and political
independence of the municipalities. New provisions in the 1982
constitution call for economic and social development in the
municipalities to form parts of national development programs and
outline the right of citizens to form organizations to ensure the
improvement and development of the municipalities.
 The
Callejas government emphasized support for political and
administrative decentralization from the executive branch to the
municipalities. In fact, one of the objectives in establishing the
Modernization of the State Commission in 1990 was to reduce the
centralism of the executive branch through the effective and orderly
transfer of functions and resources to the municipalities in order
to fortify their autonomy. The promulgation of the new Law of
Municipalities in 1990 was further evidence of the Callejas
government's emphasis on municipal development. Observers noted,
however, that the executive branch, particularly through the
decentralized agencies and institutions, still wielded significant
power at the local level in the early 1990s.
One significant measure
approved in 1992 was reform of the nation's electoral law for the
1993 national elections. For the first time, the law would allow
voters to cast their ballots separately for mayoral candidates. In
previous elections, the practice of split-party voting was not
allowed, and the mayors were elected based on the percentage of the
vote received by the presidential candidates. The reform of the
electoral law is significant in that it makes elected mayors
directly accountable to the electorate and strengthens the
democratic process at the local level. The reform could also
strengthen the chances for the nation's two smaller parties to gain
representation in the municipalities.
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