From Upside Down World, written by Sandra Cuffe, Honduran Election Results Contested Amid Reports of Fraud, Intimidation
The
tallying and transmission of voting results from the November 24
general elections continue, but so do widespread reports of fraud and
intimidation throughout Honduras. Two political parties are not
recognizing the results, announcing challenges in the courts and in the
streets.
As
of 5 p.m. on November 25, ruling National Party presidential candidate
Juan Orlando Hernández remains in the lead with 38 percent of votes,
according to the results processed by the electoral tribunal from 60
percent of polling stations. Xiomara Castro, the candidate for the
upstart Libre party trails with 29 percent. Hernandez and Castro both
declared victory on November 24, when less than half of the polling
stations’ results had been processed.
The
Libre Party emerged this year as a new contender, growing out of the
resistance movement to the June 2009 coup that ousted Castro’s husband
Manuel Zelaya from the Presidency.
In
a press conference on November 25, Libre party leader Manuel Zelaya
announced that the party does not recognize the results, claiming that
some 20 percent of polling station results that have been processed by
the electoral tribunal are inconsistent with the results at the actual
voting locations. Anti-Corruption Party presidential candidate Salvador
Nasralla, officially in fourth place, has also denounced serious
inconsistencies in reported results and vowed to initiate legal
challenges.
“If
necessary, we’ll take to the streets,” said Zelaya. In San Pedro Sula,
the country’s second largest city, Libre and National Front of Popular
Resistance activists called for supporters to gather in the central
park.
Before
issues were raised regarding the transmission of results, the electoral
process had been rife with irregularities, intimidation and fraud,
according to reports by national and international observers, some of
whom were subject to harassment and intimidation.
“The
buying and selling of votes and credentials by the National party, even
using the Nationalist discount card ‘let’s work now,’ has been observed
in many parts of the country,” according to a roundtable of electoral
human rights violations analysis, made up of national human rights,
women’s, and workers’ organizations. “In addition, there have been
irregularities in the electoral registry, where people who are alive are
listed as deceased, and voters have been transferred without
consultation."
“Nationalist
party activists have been used at the voting centers against some
representatives of the Libre party. They have warned the Libre party
members of possible attempts on their lives during or after the
elections,” the statement added.
Death
threats against Libre party members on election day formed part of an
ongoing trend. Eighteen Libre candidates and campaigners were murdered
between May 2012 and late October 2013 – more than from all other
political parties combined.
“There’s
just all these attacks all around the country of people that are
associated with the Libre party – whether they’re Libre activists,
Libre supporters or Libre sympathizers – that aren’t being reported,
but that are absolutely directly related to the state repression against
the political opposition and the fear and terror campaign that’s
occurring,” Honduras Solidarity Network delegations coordinator Karen
Spring told Upside Down World.
On
the eve of the elections, María Amparo Pineda Duarte and Julio Ramón
Maradiaga Araujo were ambushed and killed on their way home from an
elections training activity for local scrutineers and party
representatives. Pineda Duarte was the president of the El Carbón
co-operative affiliated with CNTC, a national farm workers’ union, and
Maradiaga Araujo – who initially survived the attack but died later was a
member. Both were local Libre party activists in the municipality of
Cantarranas, an hour outside of the capital.
News of the fatal attack had just aired on the radio when Nelson Orestes Canales Vásquez spoke with Upside Down World in
Tegucigalpa. The rain poured down where he and other local supporters
stood under a Libre party tent in the Centroamérica Oeste neighborhood,
one of many marginalized neighborhoods with a strong Libre base.
“In
Honduras, there was a coup d’état. We marched, we took the streets for
almost seven consecutive months – the country in resistance. Then we
created the Libre political party. It was born in the popular
resistance,” he said.
A
local party activist and member of the health workers’ union
(Sitramedhys), Canales Vásquez, says he’s not struggling just to change a
government figure, but to change the system. He sees an act of
intimidation that took place at the local party tent as part of ongoing
repression against resistance and Libre activists.
“They
don’t want an example to be set in Honduras where the people kick the
oligarchy out at the ballot box and where the system changes in favor of
the people. That’s what we’re struggling for in Honduras, and that’s
the reason for this repression against the people and against the Libre
party,” said Canales Vásquez.
Shortly
after sunset on November 23, a truck with tinted windows and no license
plate pulled up right beside their tent. The windows rolled down so
that the three people at the tent could see several masked men, one in
military uniform and the others in civilian clothing. Despite the
intimidation, Libre party activists in the neighborhood were determined
to stay at their tents all night long, said Canales Vásquez.
On
the evening of November 22, the military police attempted to enter the
neighborhood Libre party headquarters in the Kennedy neighborhood,
another Libre stronghold in Tegucigalpa. There were three vehicles with
approximately 12 agents of the controversial new military police new in
each, said César Silva, a journalist and Libre candidate for National
Congress.
“They
were all wearing balaclavas,” he said, almost shouting over the
celebratory din in the neighborhood headquarters after the military
police had left. In less than 30 minutes, more than 100 people had shown
up to defend the location and people continued to pour up the stairs
and gather to support Libre.
The
military police force was promoted by former president of Congress and
current Presidential front-runner Hernández, along with promises of
increasing police and military presence on the streets. “I will do
whatever I need to do,” Hernández pledged during his security-focused
campaign, in a country infamous for having the highest per capita murder
rate in the world.
As
the sun began to set on November 25 in Tegucigalpa, electoral tribunal
facilities were heavily militarized. The outcome of the elections
remained uncertain, both in terms of official results and organized
reactions.
Sandra Cuffe is a freelance journalist currently based in Honduras.
