The Carter Center has monitored democratic progress and setbacks in the Republic of Honduras over a number of years.
At the invitation of the Honduran Supreme Electoral Tribunal, The Carter Center sent a small high-level delegation to the November 2013 national elections in Honduras. The delegation was led by two members of the Friends of the Inter-American Democratic Charter, former Presidents Carlos Mesa of Bolivia and Martin Torrijos of Panama, and included members of the Center's Latin America and Caribbean Program (formerly known as the Americas Program).
In 2017, the Friends of the Inter-American Democratic Charter conducted preelection visits to Honduras to analyze the electoral environment and to promote a peaceful electoral process. In 2018-2019, The Carter Center organized a series of awareness-raising and advocacy activities to support Honduran efforts to design and implement electoral reform in collaboration with local partner the Association for a More Just Society (Asociación para una Sociedad mas Justa) and the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance.
Since 2019, The Carter Center has collaborated with the National Democratic Institute office in Honduras to support a network of civil society organizations as they monitor the electoral reform implementation and the country’s electoral cycle.
Members of the delegation made three pre-election visits and met with the judges of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, officials of political parties, presidential candidates and their representatives, as well as international observers and various international aid institutions. After the election, the delegation recognized the efforts of all involved to support the process and contribute to more inclusive and transparent elections. At the same time, it recommended that Honduras consider electoral reforms.
Following up on the recommendations from the delegation, in March 2014 the Latin America and Caribbean Program and the local office of the National Democratic Institute for International Relations cosponsored a seminar on compared experiences of electoral reform. Mesa, the former president of Bolivia, delivered the keynote address.
In November 2014, Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández visited The Carter Center and met with former U.S. President Jimmy Carter. And in January 2015, following an invitation from President Hernández, representatives from the Latin America and Caribbean Program traveled to Tegucigalpa to assess the timing and possibility of collaborating with the Hondurans on an electoral reform project.
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