Villeda Morales, Ramón (1908–1971)

Honduran centrist Liberal Party politician, president 1957–63. He launched a centre-left reform programme, involving agrarian reform, a progressive land tax, a new labour code, modernization of the country's infrastructure, increased spending on health and education, new welfare benefits, and a social security law. A treaty was also signed providing for entry into the Central American Common Market. In October 1963, shortly before presidential elections, Villeda was overthrown in an army coup led by Colonel Osvaldo López Arellano and went into exile.

Although Villeda won a plurality of the vote in the 1954 presidential election, Vice President Julío Lozano Díaz usurped the presidency and Villeda was forced into exile. He was made ambassador to the USA by the military junta that overthrew Lozano in October 1956 and, after the Liberals won new elections to the congress, Villeda became president in December 1957.

Trained in Honduras and Europe, he worked as a practising paediatrician during the right-wing National Party dictatorship of Tiburcio Carías Andino, 1933–49. He became leader of the Liberal Party in 1949 and founded the party's newspaper, El Pueblo.

Villeda died in New York, in October 1971, soon after becoming head of the Honduran delegation to the United Nations.