"Here the People Govern': Autonomy and Resistance in San Francisco Opalaca, Honduras
"Here the People Govern': Autonomy and Resistance in San Francisco Opalaca, Honduras
Written by Brigitte Gynther
Sunday, 25 May 2014 17:34
Every day and night for four consecutive months, the Lenca people of San Francisco Opalaca have been maintaining a 24-hour blockade and vigil at the entrance to their Mayor’s office, thus preventing the ruling party-imposed candidate from taking office. The Honduran government claims National Party candidate Socorro Sanchez won the Mayoral race in Opalaca during last November’s elections. However, the people of Opalaca know otherwise. The fraud that occurred in San Francisco Opalaca – a remote Indigenous Lenca municipality in the Honduran state of Intibuca – is a microcosm of the larger electoral fraud that many people believe occurred all across the country in November's election as the ruling National Party consolidated power and prevented the widely popular LIBRE party from winning the presidency.
In San Francisco Opalaca, Socorro Sanchez came to power in the widely boycotted elections following the 2009 military coup in Honduras. For the 2013 elections, he used his position to prepare a system of fraud to ensure he stayed in power. Residents of Opalaca report that people from La Esperanza, Azacualpa, Otoro, and other places were registered to vote in Opalaca ahead of the elections. Not only were these National Party loyalists from other places reportedly registered to vote in Opalaca, but they were also reportedly brought in to work the voting stations as table representatives. Community leaders contend that the National Party purchased 32 voting table credentials from the small political parties, as they in other voting stations across the country, stacking the table workers against the new LIBRE party when it came time to count the votes. Socorro Sanchez also bought votes, pressuring residents and offering money. If you were extremely poor, he reportedly offered 500 Lempiras; if you were a little better off the offer was 1,000 to 1,500 Lempiras. One man recalls how his brother had never supported the National Party before, but after being constantly pressured by the Mayor, he felt he had no other choice than to join the party.
Despite all of the manipulations to rig the elections, the people of San Francisco Opalaca say they have had enough of Socorro Sanchez’s corruption and alliances with corporations that want to privatize Opalaca’s resources, not to mention that he didn’t get enough votes to win. Even with the National Party apparently busing in voters from other places, buying credentials to manipulate the vote counting, and offering money, the outcome was a tie between Sanchez and Entimo Vasquez, a long-time community leader and the candidate for the new LIBRE political party. So what the National Party did to fix that problem, according to community leaders, was simply add eight more votes for Socorro to one of the tally sheets. In the community of El Naranjo, the table workers counted 80 votes each for Sanchez and Vasquez, but recorded 88 votes for Sanchez on the tally sheet that was transmitted to the Electoral Tribunal. This tally sheet was posted by the Electoral Tribunal and Socorro was declared the winner of the Municipality by eight votes.
But the people of Opalaca knew what happened; those who witnessed the vote count in El Naranjo knew the tally sheet was not correct and many voters had noticed people they had never seen before voting in their small communities. They also knew that these people were not residents of Opalaca. Vasquez and his supporters tried to challenge the results, but given that the National Party had carefully consolidated control of the Electoral Tribunal, Supreme Court, and Attorney General’s office before the elections, that led nowhere.
So on January 25, 2014 when Socorro Sanchez was to be sworn in as Mayor, person after person showed up very early at the Mayor’s office. Soon hundreds gathered and they blocked the door and the entire front of the building. They would not let Socorro be sworn in as their Mayor. They held an Assembly and declared that the Honduran government cannot impose a Mayor on them. They stayed there all day. All night. The next day. And the next. And they haven’t left.
More:
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/honduras-archives-46/4865--qhere-the-people-govern-autonomy-and-resistance-in-san-francisco-opalaca-honduras