General elections were held in Honduras on 10 October 1954.[1] The elections were relatively honest.[2] and saw Ramón Villeda Morales of the Liberal Party emerge as the most popular presidential candidate with 48% of the vote. However, the constitution required Congress to confirm the president if no candidate received a majority in the popular vote. The Liberals did not have a majority in Congress, and the National Party and National Reformist Movement (MNR) agreed to block Villeda's candidacy, although they were unable to agree on a candidate of their own.[3] The two parties boycotted the confirmation session in November – an idea proposed by US Ambassador Whitting Willauer – meaning those present did not form a quorum.[4]
Amid the crisis, incumbent president Juan Manuel Gálvez handed over the presidency to his vice-president Julio Lozano Díaz due to illness.[2] Lozano decided to remain in office,[5] dissolved congress and appointed a 59-member State Advisory Council with representatives from the Liberal, National and MNR. It was to write a new constitution, labor code, social security law, and act merely in an advisory capacity to the president.[6]
^ abThomas P. Anderson (1969) The war of the dispossessed: Honduras and El Salvador, 1969, p59
^Franklin D. Parker (1981) The Central American republics, p190
^Kirk Bowman (2001) "The public battles over militarisation and democracy in Honduras, 1954-1963", Journal of Latin American Studies volume 33, pp539–560
^Donald E. Schulz & Deborah Sundloff Schulz (1994) The United States, Honduras, and the crisis in Central America, p25
^Thomas J. Dodd (2005) Tiburcio Carías: Portrait of a Honduran political leader, p229
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