Azcona Hoyo, José Simón (1927–2005)

José Simón Azcona Hoyo (b. 26 January 1927, d. 24 October 2005), president of Honduras (1986–1990). José Azcona received his degree in civil engineering from Tegucigalpa's National Autonomous University in 1963. He studied and worked in Mexico, Costa Rica, and the United States intermittently during the 1960s and 1970s but maintained his ties to the Liberal Party in Honduras. He served in a variety of political positions, including congressional deputy (1982–1985) and minister of communication (1982–1983). Azcona broke with incumbent president Roberto Suazo Córdova in 1985 and led a faction of the Liberal Party known as the Rodista Dissent Movement, after his mentor Modesto Rodas. Under a new electoral system, in which the two main parties alternate terms in power, Azcona won the 1985 presidential race even though he did not receive a plurality. Despite this successful transition of power between civilian presidents, the strength of the Honduran military grew during Azcona's administration. Although he was widely viewed as responsible and trustworthy, Azcona was a weak president faced with increasingly complicated domestic and foreign issues: the presence in his country of Nicaraguan contras, rapidly expanding U.S. involvement in the area, Salvadoran refugees, and the appearance of a guerrilla threat.

See alsoHonduras, National Party (PNH) .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

James A. Morris, Honduras: Caudillo Politics and Military Rulers (1984).

James Dunkerley, Power in the Isthmus (1988).

Roy Gutman, Banana Diplomacy (1988).

Additional Bibliography

Azcona Bocock, José S. Construyendo una Honduras mejor. Tegucigalpa: Graficentro Editores, 2005.

                                          Karen Racine