Editing Rafael Leonardo Callejas (section)

==Presidency (1990-1994)==
===Economy===
The elected president, Rafael Leonardo Callejas Romero received from the previous liberal governments, a country submerged in a deep economic crisis. With this discouraging panorama, the new president had to face the challenges of a Honduras with a fiscal deficit, trade deficit, massive unemployment, as well as the fact that this nation had been declared "ineligible" for loans and other financial aid. by international credit organizations, this, among many other economic problems.

It was for this reason that in March 1990, Callejas declared that Honduras was "bankrupt" with a "false" economy. To solve this crisis, Callejas presented to the National Congress a package of laws called the Measures of the Economic Order based on "the neoliberal economic model" which "does not allow the regulation of the State in the market or in the business or economic development of the country" .

The economic measures presented by Callejas were re-baptized by the National Congress of the Republic as Decree Law 18-90 of the Structural Ordering of the Economy. These were "recommended" as a form of pressure by international organizations such as the International Monetary Fund and the International Agency for Development (AID) so that Honduras would once again be eligible for new loans, which was one of the objectives of President Callejas.

Historian Longino Becerra, one of the harshest critics of Callejas and the new law, asserts that "almost immediately after the "package" was approved... the prices of numerous essential items began to skyrocket." However, for some, this was because "Honduran producers believed that free markets implied the consent of their excesses, such as the upward variation of the prices of their products."

In addition to rising prices, the new Law resulted in "successive devaluations of the national currency, the Lempira - which since 1920 had maintained a fixed exchange rate with the dollar." There were "massive layoffs in the public sector and the reduction of social spending, inevitably punished large layers of the population already hit by the shortcomings of a poor country and with a very unbalanced distribution of income" ... "causing, already in the first months of the Callejas administration, a strong social protest that was expressed in street agitations and sectoral strikes called by very combative union organizations."

Despite the fact that President Callejas began his term with serious setbacks after the implementation of his economic package, and having finished his term with a fairly "discreet performance in the macro economy, with an average annual growth of only 1, 5% of GDP", the efforts made by President Callejas in the economic sphere were recognized by some observers.

According to the writer, Rodolfo Pastor Fasquelle, when Callejas came to power in 1990, "the shortcomings were immense and inertia had fallen." According to Fasquelle, Callejas "had the courage to act consistently." In addition, says Fasquelle, Callejas "professionally cleaned up the state's finances, which was necessary; opened the market, took the productive apparatus out of drowsiness, prevented speculation from getting out of control; advanced in the privatization process; achieved relative growth. .. left a substantial material heritage.” In addition to achieving " the resumption of international financial assistance, which, together with the excellent relations with the North American power, facilitated the cancellation by Washington in September 1991 of 430 million dollars of bilateral debt."

For Alexis Gonzáles de Oliva, Callejas is "Possibly ... the first president who, when assuming the Presidency of the Republic, has a greater awareness of national problems, an appreciation of the difficulties that have slowed down the country's economic growth, and clear visions of what must be done to create the bases for taking off, the risks that must be run, the bureaucratic legal adjustments that had to be introduced and the results that could be expected".