Fátima Mena: An uncomfortable voice for the tripartite system in Honduras
Maldito País
septiembre 2, 2025
The current National Congress of Honduras, is considered by the government led by Xiomara Castro as the “Congress of the people”, however, according to data from the Public Opinion Survey of the Reflection, Research and Communication Team ERIC-SJ, this institution is perceived by 80.6 percent of the Honduran population as one of the “most corrupt”, and 78.9 percent distrust its legislative work. It is necessary to establish that, since the installation of the first legislature of Congress in 2022, a deep crisis began within the governing Liberty and Refoundation party, which led to the further fracturing of every proposal or decision made throughout these years.
The Honduran people, has labeled the National Congress as a governing power that is synonymous with pacts, privileges, and complicity. In those corridors of the hemicycle, the voice of Fátima Mena has been a constant discomfort. Direct, critical, and with a commitment that seems unfailing despite adversity, this lawyer and Honduran deputy by the Partido Salvador of Honduras (PSH) has built her public career on two unshakeable convictions: justice and law.
“I am a mother, a lawyer, a daughter, and a sister, but above all, I am a woman with a profound sense of justice,” she describes herself calmly. Anyone listening can quickly understand that this is not a rehearsed speech, but a declaration that comes from the depths of her personal history.
The origin of rebellion
Fátima Mena’s life has been marked by the struggle against unjust structures. Her mother, a judge on the Court of Appeals, was an example of strength. «My mother taught me that public service is an honor that must be exercised with integrity. When they tried to subdue her and couldn’t, we had to flee,» she recalls. The exile in Costa Rica, far from extinguishing her rebellion, planted in her the certainty that justice has a price, and that often that price is freedom or personal peace.
The experience showed her firsthand what it means to confront political and economic powers in Honduras. “I understood that fighting for justice is never free,” she says firmly.
Fátima Mena is the mother of a 14-year-old boy, a wife, and the older sister of three. Her life has been marked by a staunch defense of human rights, democracy, and equality. From a young age, she was interested in issues of social justice, equality, and development. It was no surprise to those who knew her that she chose to study law. She had felt this calling since she was a child.
Graduated as a lawyer from the Catholic University of Honduras (UNICAH), she worked for years in the judiciary system, especially in the criminal justice, where she also served as a public defender. That experience allowed her to see the harshest face of exclusion in Honduras: poverty turned into crime, criminalized youth, and social disparities behind bars.
Aware of the urgency of transforming the system, she completed a master’s degree in Administration of Justice with a socio-legal focus at the National University of Costa Rica. During her stay, she also received training in human rights at the Inter-American Institute, in collaboration with the Inter-American Court.
In 2009, she returned to Honduras, a country fractured by the political crisis caused by the coup d’état. The social division and collective grief pushed her to go beyond legal activism. That year, a talk given by the Jesuit priest Ismael Moreno, “Father Melo,” and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Rigoberta Menchú in Costa Rica on the theme of the necessity of social justice in Central America, and the importance of fighting for democracy in highly polarized countries. It was a turning point for Mena: “That day I realized that I had to go back and fight from within.”
Thus, in 2011, she actively joined the Anti-Corruption Party (PAC), and in 2013, she assumed her first elected office. Since then, she has been one of the strongest voices denouncing corruption, impunity, and structural inequality. Her commitment is not limited to speeches: it is reflected in every initiative, every vote, and every ethical stance she takes, even if it costs her some allies.
The PAC was a novelty in the 2013 electoral process, led by sports commentator and television host Salvador Nasralla and many men and women who had never ventured into party politics but who championed an anti-corruption rhetoric, achieving the highest number of votes for their candidacies for deputies, surpassing the National, Liberal, and Liberty and Refoundation (LIBRE) parties. However, friction among party members began to fracture and create small movements that culminated in an internal election process, endorsed and required by the now-defunct Supreme Electoral Tribunal, which excluded its founder. This led to a series of complaints from Salvador Nasralla and his people, suggesting that this was part of a strategy by the National Party to weaken a party that enjoyed majority support in the department with the greatest electoral burden: Cortés.
Thus, for the 2017 electoral process, Salvador Nasralla, Fatima Mena, and Luis Redondo, the current president of the National Congress and now a member of the governing LIBRE party, created the Savior Party of Honduras (PSH).
During her time in the Salviorr Party of Honduras (PSH), she consolidated her role as a leader on issues of democracy, transparency, and women’s rights. And although her party is now out of the electoral race, since its founder, due to disputes with his own deputies, has decided to leave the party and join the Liberal Party as a candidate for the presidency, Fátima Mena assures that her fight is not over.
Political violence: being a woman in a hostile Congress
In a legislative environment dominated by machismo, Fátima Mena has faced political violence that often comes disguised as jokes, exclusions, or microaggressions, but also some that manifest themselves in outright threats. “A male representative is not treated the same as a female representative. The disdain for women is evident and often cruel. We have to face a completely uneven playing field,” she denounces.
Even so, she has learned to transform those experiences into a banner of struggle. For her, the presence of women in politics cannot be limited to occupying a seat; it is about changing a system that historically has not been a the service of public policies where the interests of the vast majority are the ones that prevail.
When she talks about the current Congress, she doesn’t hide her disenchantment. «I thought this Congress would be more democratic, but it has repeated and even deepened authoritarian practices. That frustrates and worries me,» she admits.
Mena has been one of the clearest and most persistent voices in the fight against corruption in Honduras. She says that in the current National Congress, led by Luis Redón, deputy of LIBRE, before PSH, there was «a constant exploitation of anti-corruption rhetoric to achieve political agreements and benefits. It was used as a symbol, a decorative flag, that only appeared when it was useful for intimidation or negotiation.»
According to Mena, the anti-corruption approach has been reduced to a tool of political blackmail. After more than three and a half years marked by corruption scandals in the National Congress, the reality has been exposed: there is no genuine commitment to the reforms the country needs. “The Penal Code itself, reformed to soften penalties for corruption crimes, protects both past and present impunity. And key proposals such as the Effective Collaboration Law, which could dismantle criminal networks from within, have not advanced. Why? Because many figures close to the current government could be targeted by those same laws.”
To talk today about an International Commission against Corruption and Impunity (CICIH), with independence, autonomy, and technical criteria, generates resistance precisely because it would threaten the traditional use of power as an instrument of private gain. For Mena, this domestication of institutions has emptied the true meaning of politics, which should be the pursuit of the common good.
«What we’ve experienced isn’t politics, it’s politickery, and the most worrying thing is that those who once criticized it now reproduce it with the same practices. That’s what keeps us stuck on major national issues,» she explained.
Faced with this situation, Fátima Mena believes that the only way out is an active, mobilized, and vigilant citizenry. A citizenry that is not satisfied with promises, but rather demands concrete results, real transparency, and a commitment to the future of the country.
Fátima is deeply proud of the legislative achievements she has championed, not as a personal victory, but as part of a collective commitment to transform Honduras from an institutional perspective. Her career in the National Congress has been marked by courageous and necessary initiatives, many of which were resisted by the power structures, but fundamental to the well-being of the citizenry.
She drafted the law that abolished child marriage in Honduras, one of the most significant reforms in the protection of girls and adolescents. She also led the implementation of the Registry of Delinquent Child Support Debtors, a crucial tool for guaranteeing the rights of children and holding accountable those who fail to fulfill their parental obligations. “These seem like small achievements, but they represent a profound change in the lives of many people,” she says.
During her tenure as a deputy, she promoted some of the few structural reforms approved in terms of transparency, such as the repeal of the Secrets Law and the elimination of decrees 116-2019 and 93-2021, regulations that protected corruption and blocked access to public information.
One of his greatest contributions was the creation of a National Anti-Corruption Agenda, which, although not promoted by the majority in Congress, remains a clear roadmap for any government that wishes to seriously combat impunity. «It’s valuable not because I created it, but because it was developed collectively, alongside civil society organizations that have worked on this issue for decades. My role was to facilitate that process as president of the commission.»
A National Congress in constant crisis
Since 2022, the National Congress has become a scene of constant tensions and negotiations between the majority parties, marked more by calculations of power than by the construction of agreements that benefit the population. The lack of consensus has led to multiple political crises, such as the internal division surrounding the election of the Board of Directors, the legislative paralysis caused by the election of the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General of the Republic, and the constant suspension of sessions when unilateral decisions of the current president of the legislative body are questioned. These dynamics have not only weakened the institutional framework but have also deepened the public perception that Congress acts in isolation from collective interests.
One possible explanation for the crises in the legislative branch is the persistence of the traditional culture of distributing quotas among the parties that make up the political system, which characterized the two-party system (National Party and Liberal Party), and now, with similar practices, the LIBRE party has joined the fray, making a culture of consensus increasingly impossible. This situation is further complicated by the fact that no political force within the National Congress alone can secure either a simple majority or a qualified majority in the votes of the full legislature.
At the same time, the lack of transparency in the management of public funds has raised questions about the institution’s transparency. A journalistic exercise by Radio Progreso has revealed that, instead of prioritizing investment in programs that address the most urgent social needs, more than 600 million lempiras have been allocated to subsidies for which accountability is unclear or nonexistent. Furthermore, the suppression of information about this fund fuels distrust in an agency that, according to perception surveys, is among the least trusted in the country.
The absence of real dialogue and the low legislative productivity reinforce the sense of stagnation. Bills with a high impact on the population remain shelved, such as the Tax Justice Law, which is at an impasse due to a lack of consensus. In this context, the National Congress fails to position itself as a pluralistic and democratic space for deliberation, but rather as an arena for partisan disputes that limit the possibility of moving toward the structural transformations demanded by citizens.
With dreams and hopes intact
At 42, Fátima Mena still clings to the hope of a different country. She imagines a Honduras where corruption is no longer the stumbling block that impedes progress, and where democracy isn’t limited to voting, but instead guarantees real opportunities for all.
“I’m no more afraid of raising my voice than of remaining silent. That silence would be unforgivable,” she asserts. It’s that conviction that keeps her going, despite threats, frustration, and political betrayals.
Fátima Mena’s story is that of a woman who turned adversity into strength. From exile in her adolescence to the tensions in the legislative chamber, she has learned that justice is defended with courage, even when it hurts, even when it makes people uncomfortable. «I continue to dream of a country where no one has to choose between remaining silent or risking their life to seek justice.», she expressed.
