General elections were held in Honduras on 29 November 2009, including presidential, parliamentary and local elections. Voters went to the polls to elect: A new President of Honduras to serve a four-year term starting on 27 January 2010. 128 members to serve a four-year term in the National Congress. Representatives in municipal (local) governments. The possibility of having a "fourth ballot box" (Spanish: cuarta urna) at the 29 November election regarding the convocation of a National Constituent Assembly constituted a major element of the 2009 Honduran constitutional crisis.
Campaigning
Preceding the planned November elections, the 2009 Honduran constitutional crisis (ouster of president Manuel Zelaya) occurred, bringing the legitimacy of the elections into doubt.
Campaigning by candidates took place for the three months prior to 29 November in the context of conflict between the de facto government, the de jure government, and resistance to the de facto government, mostly coordinated by the National Resistance Front.
Nearly one month of this campaign period was covered by the Micheletti de facto government Decree PCM-M-016-2009, signed on 22 September 2009 and rescinded on 19 October 2009. The decree suspended five constitutional rights: personal liberty (Article 69), freedom of expression (Article 72), freedom of movement (Article 81), habeas corpus (Article 84) and freedom of association.
Hundreds of candidates, including presidential candidate Carlos H. Reyes, renounced their candidacy citing scepticism that the same military that overthrew the elected president could be trusted to run a free and fair election five months later.
Presidential candidates
The candidates of the two main political parties were former presidential candidate Porfirio Lobo Sosa of the National Party and former vice-president Elvin Santos of the Liberal Party. The trade unionist Garifuna leader Bernard Martínez Valerio was the Innovation and Unity Party (PINU) candidate. Martínez was the first black presidential candidate in the history of Honduras, according to PINU. Another trade union leader, Carlos Humberto Reyes, one of the coordinators of the Frente Nacional de Resistencia Contra el Golpe de Estado en Honduras, was an independent candidate for the election but formally withdrew in order not to legitimise the coup d'état and what he and his supporters perceived would be fraudulent elections.
The table below shows all six continuing and withdrawn candidates, in the order published by the Supreme Electoral Tribunal.
Opinion polls
A pre-election poll conducted between 23 and 29 August 2009 by COIMER & OP showed a relative majority (41%) who would not declare a voting preference or would not vote in favour of any of the six candidates. By mid-October this had dropped to a minority (29%) according to a CID-Gallup poll. Porfirio Lobo's support increased from 28% in August to 37% in October, and Elvin Santos' support increased from 14% to 21%. According to the two polls, Carlos H. Reyes' support dropped from 12% to 6%, while the other three candidates increased from 1–2% support in August to 2–3% in October. A popularity rating question in the COIMER & OP August poll, concerning positive, average and negative opinions towards presidential candidates and other prominent people, found that Porfirio Lobo had more negative than positive popularity (34% versus 30%), as did Elvin Santos (45% versus 19%) and the de facto President Roberto Micheletti (56% versus 16%) and César Ham (20% versus 16%). Carlos H. Reyes had more positive than negative ratings (25% versus 14%), as did de jure President Manuel Zelaya (45% versus 26%).
Conduct
Over thirty thousand security personnel were involved in running the election, including 12,000 military, 14,000 police officers and 5000 reservists. Mayors were requested by the army to provide lists of "enemies" (Spanish: enemigos) of the electoral process in order to "neutralise" them (Spanish: neutralizarlos).