Direct popular general elections ( es, Elecciones generales de Honduras de 1963) were scheduled in Honduras for 13 October 1963. 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 ...

selected

Modesto Rodas Alvarado Modesto Rodas Alvarado (15 March 1921 – 10 July 1979) was a prominent Honduran lawyer and politician who served as President of the National Congress of Honduras between 1957 and 1963. Biography Modesto Rodas Alvarado was born 15 March ...

, even though the president

Ramón Villeda Morales José Ramón Adolfo Villeda Morales (November 26, 1909 – October 8, 1971) served as President of Honduras from 1957 to 1963. He was also known by the nickname, "Pajarito". Biography Trained as a physician, his specialty was pediatrics ...

favoured another candidate. Villeda and most of the party maintained unity. The National Party of Honduras nomination of

Ramón Ernesto Cruz Uclés Ramón Ernesto Cruz Uclés (4 January 1903 – 6 August 1985) was the President of Honduras from 7 June 1971 to 4 December 1972. Biography Cruz was born in San Juan de Flores in Honduras. His Father was Carlos Alberto Cruz and his mother Eli ...

“''... marked the requiem once and for all of the forty-year domination of

Tiburcio Carías Andino Tiburcio Carías Andino (5 March 1876 – 23 December 1969) was a Honduran politician and military officer with the rank of Major General. Thirty-eighth president of the Republic of Honduras, constitutional period from 1924 and thereafter in t ...

over the National party. Because

Cruz Cruz is a surname of Iberian Peninsula, Iberian origin, first found in Castile (historical region), Castile, Spain, but later spread throughout the territories of the former Spanish Empire, Spanish and Portuguese Empires. In Spanish and Portugu ...

defeated Carías’ son, Gonzalo Carías Castillo, by just three votes in the convention''”. Immediately after the May convention, Carías resigned as the party’s jefe supreme and with his son formed the Popular Progressive Party of Honduras. “''The 1963 election campaign favored

, the charismatic and fiery former president of the Constitutional Assembly, who promised to large campaign crowds that he would reduce the power of the military. There was a ground swell of support from various sectors of Honduran society to follow the Costa Rican model and proscribe the military''”. “''Ten days before the 1963 presidential elections, the military, fearful of Villeda Morales’s establishment of a Civil Guard independent of the military and encouraged by the fruit companies and domestic landlords, successfully overthrew the Villeda Morales government and canceled the elections, which probably would have been won by a Liberal colleague of the president’s. Although the

Kennedy administration John F. Kennedy's tenure as the 35th president of the United States, began with his inauguration on January 20, 1961, and ended with his assassination on November 22, 1963. A Democrat from Massachusetts, he took office following the 1960 ...

refused to grant U.S. diplomatic recognition to the new regime, the Johnson administration did so a year later''”.Weaver, Frederick Stirton. Inside the volcano: the history and political economy of Central America. Boulder: Westview Press. 1994. Pp. 208.

References

{{Honduran elections Elections in Honduras 1963 elections in Central America 1963 in Honduras

1963 Events January * January 1 – Bogle–Chandler case: Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation scientist Dr. Gilbert Bogle and Mrs. Margaret Chandler are found dead (presumed poisoned), in bushland near the Lane Co ...

October 1963 events in North America