Why the world should care about Honduras' recent election
Why the world should care about Honduras' recent election
Hondurans are revolting against the US-backed outcome. There are too many reports of rampant vote-buying, fraud and violence
Mark Weisbrot
theguardian.com, Tuesday 3 December 2013 09.15 EST
Election results are often contested, and that is one reason why governments sometimes invite official observer missions from inter-governmental bodies such as the Organization of American States (OAS) or European Union (EU). But there are times and places when these outside organizations don't provide much in the way of independent observation.
On Sunday, 24 November, Hondurans went to the polls to choose a new president, congress, and mayors. There were a lot of concerns about whether a free and fair election was possible in the climate of intimidation and violence (pdf) that prevailed in the country. As I noted before the vote, members of both the US House of Representatives and the US Senate had, in the prior six months, written to US Secretary of State John Kerry, expressing their concerns.
Their worst fears proved justified. During the weekend of the election, three Libre party activists were murdered. This has received little attention from the media, but imagine if 120 Democratic party organizers (scaling up for the population of the US) were assassinated in the course of a US presidential election – a fourth Libre party activist was murdered on 30 November. Libre is the party formed by Hondurans who opposed the 2009 military coup that ousted the democratically-elected, left-of-center President Mel Zelaya. Their presidential candidate was Xiomara Castro, who is married to Zelaya.
~ snip ~
Reports of fraud, vote-buying, the buying of polling-place party representatives by the National Party, and other irregularities came from observers during the day of the election and following. Of course, these things happen in many elections, especially in poor countries, so it is generally a judgment call for election monitors to determine if the election is "good enough" to warrant approval, or whether it should be rejected.But there are two very big things that stand out in this election that raise serious doubts about the legitimacy of the vote count.
More:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/03/honduras-election-eu-oas-observer-fraud-violence
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