POLITICAL REPRESENTATION

According to the Freedom House report, Freedom in the World 2018, the status of Honduras in such respect is “partly free” with an aggregate score of 46/100, being 0=least free, and 100=most free.

The Honduran political representation pertains to a unicameral system called, National Congress with 128 representatives (seats) elected directly by the citizens, 18 years and older of 18 districts (departamentos) within a range of 1 to 23 congressmen.

The number of representatives to the national Congress in the Honduran case was defined in 1981, after 18 years rule of almost continued military regimes and with a population of 3.8 million inhabitants (between 1971 and 1972 there were 18 months of power cohabitation shared by  2 major political parties and the military).

In the last 37 years, the total Honduran population has increased to more than double and because of the deterioration in economic, social, and security conditions, the population in the districts have changed substantially. 

The table below shows the number of representatives to congresses and national assemblies for Central American countries, Panamá and Dominican Republic. Going from a representation average of 48,000 inhabitants per seat in Panama to 102,000 in Guatemala, one can assume a better representation wherever this one has a lower average, considering quality representation, constant.  

Based on the low average criterion, Honduras would be in the third position in terms of better representation in the region. Nevertheless, taking in account the time elapsed since the seats per district were set, a revision and adaptation to the current population among the districts could reshape the national political representation. Besides, a clear compromise from representatives to their constituencies should bound their performances towards the population wellbeing.

COUNTRY	Seats per District	Total Seats 2014	Population thousand	Average/inhabitants representation thousand
Costa Rica	4-20	57	4,8513	85
Dominican Republic	2-36	150	9,98022	66
El Salvador	3-20	84	6,4602	80
Guatemala	1-29	158	16,1761	102
Honduras	1-23	128	8,9501	70
Nicaragua	1-20	92	6,5144	71
Panamá	1-7	78	3,7641	48
TOTAL	1-36	747	56,695	76

Source: Wikipedia, 1= July 2015; 2=2016; 3=June 2015; 4=June 2012