Ricardo Maduro
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Ricardo Rodolfo Maduro Joest (born 20 April 1946 in
Panama Panama ( , ; es, link=no, Panamá ), officially the Republic of Panama ( es, República de Panamá), is a transcontinental country spanning the southern part of North America and the northern part of South America. It is bordered by Cos ...
) is a Honduran politician who served as
President of Honduras The president of Honduras ( es, Presidente de Honduras) officially known as the President of the Republic of Honduras (Spanish: ''Presidente de la República de Honduras''), is the head of state and head of government of Honduras, and the Comm ...
from 2002 to 2006. A member of the National Party, Maduro was previously chairman of the
Central Bank of Honduras The Central Bank of Honduras ( es, Banco Central de Honduras) was established on 1 July 1950. The current bank president is Wilfredo Cerrato. Presidents * Roberto Ramírez Ordóñez, 1950-1971 * Alberto Galeano, 1971-1975 * Guillermo Bueso, 1975- ...
. He graduated from
The Lawrenceville School The Lawrenceville School is a coeducational preparatory school for boarding and day students located in the Lawrenceville section of Lawrence Township, in Mercer County, New Jersey, United States. Lawrenceville is a member of the Eight Schoo ...
(where he was awarded the Lawrenceville Medal, Lawrenceville's highest award to alumni) and later
Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...
. Maduro is a member of the Levy-Maduro family whose roots go through Portugal, the Netherlands and the Netherlands Antilles.


Life and career

Maduro's first marriage to Miriam Andréu produced three daughters and a son, Ricardo Ernesto, who was kidnapped at age 25 on 23 April 1997. Ricardo Ernesto's body was discovered two days later. His death inspired Maduro to aspire to the presidency and gave him the popularity that allowed him to first register and then be elected as a presidential candidate, in spite of a constitutional ban on those not born in Honduras from becoming President. This constitutional ban created great controversy before the 2001 elections. Having been chosen as the PNH candidate, he was eventually allowed to stand. In his campaign he promised to tackle crime and the
Mara Salvatrucha Mara Salvatrucha, commonly known as MS-13, is an international criminal gang that originated in Los Angeles, California, in the 1970s and 1980s. Originally, the gang was set up to protect Salvadoran immigrants from other gangs in the Los Ange ...
gang (maras). He immediately brought troops out onto the streets of the larger cities to accompany the local police. The PNH-held National Congress passed laws making illicit association a crime, which have seen hundreds of gang members put behind bars. In October 2002, Maduro married the
Spaniard Spaniards, or Spanish people, are a Romance ethnic group native to Spain. Within Spain, there are a number of national and regional ethnic identities that reflect the country's complex history, including a number of different languages, both ind ...
Aguas Santas Ocaña Navarro Aguas Santas Ocaña Navarro (born 23 April 1963) is a former first lady of Honduras. Marriage and first lady Ocaña Navarro was the wife of former President Ricardo Maduro, marrying him when he was already President in October 2002 after meeti ...
, whom he met when she was a member of the Spanish Embassy in Honduras. Shortly after he left office, Maduro and Ocaña filed for divorce. She consequently moved to Nicaragua with her adoptive children to direct a non-profit organization devoted to children. Maduro remained in Tegucigalpa. Maduro's eldest son is a United States citizen and lives in the U.S. On 1 May 2005 the plane Maduro was traveling in crashed into the Caribbean Sea off the shore of
Tela Tela is a town, with a population of 38,030 (2020 calculation), and a municipality in Honduras on the northern Caribbean coast. It is located in the department of Atlantida. History Colonial era Tela was founded by the Spanish conquistador ...
. Maduro, his daughter Lorena, and the pilot were reportedly not seriously injured and were rescued by local residents. He was taken to a hospital in
Comayagua Comayagua () is a city, municipality and old capital of Honduras, located northwest of Tegucigalpa on the highway to San Pedro Sula and above sea level. The accelerated growth experienced by the city of Comayagua led the municipal authoriti ...
to recover. On 27 November 2005 Maduro presided over a new set of presidential and general elections. His party lost the presidency to the
Liberal Party of Honduras The Liberal Party of Honduras (Spanish: ''Partido Liberal de Honduras)'' is a centrist liberal political party in Honduras that was founded in 1891. It is the oldest extant political party in the country, and one of the two main parties that h ...
(PLH) and its candidate
Manuel Zelaya José Manuel Zelaya Rosales (born 20 September 1952)Encyclopædia BritannicaManuel Zelaya/ref> is a Honduran politician who was President of Honduras from 27 January 2006 until 28 June 2009, and who since January 2022 serves as the first Fir ...
. Zelaya succeeded Maduro on 27 January 2006. Maduro currently serves as President of Inversiones la Paz in Tegucigalpa, and is active in the education organization he created in honor of his son, the Fundacion para la Educacion Ricardo Ernesto Maduro Andreu, FEREMA. The organization is set up to give an education to lower income kindergarten students. Maduro believes that kindergarten is an instrumental part in a child’s life to be able to succeed academically.


Honors

*
Order of Brilliant Jade The Order of Brilliant Jade is a civilian order of the Republic of China that can be worn only by the head of a nation. According to regulations, the order can only be presented by the president of the country or an emissary expressly dispatched ...
with Grand Cordon (Republic of China)


See also

*
History of Honduras Honduras was inhabited by many indigenous peoples when the Spanish arrived in the 16th century. The western-central part of Honduras was inhabited by the Lencas, the central north coast by the Tol, the area east and west of Trujillo by the ...
*
Politics of Honduras Politics of Honduras takes place in a framework of a multi-party system presidential system, presidential representative democracy, representative democratic republic. The President of Honduras is both head of state and head of government. Execut ...


External links


Biography by CIDOB
(in Spanish)

at the Permanent Mission of the United Nations website.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Maduro, Ricardo 1946 births Living people Presidents of Honduras Presidents of the Central Bank of Honduras Honduran economists National Party of Honduras politicians Honduran Roman Catholics Stanford University alumni Lawrenceville School alumni Honduran expatriates in the United States