Political Candidates: Some Off Like a Shot, Others Vow to Boycott Elections

[Downwinder]

http://hondurasoye.wordpress.com/2009/09/01/political-candidates-some-off-like-a-shot-others-vow-to-boycott-elections/

[Peace Patriot]

1. It is very tough decision, I'm sure, to boycott the election, but it is the right one.

The left has been deprived of media, money, activists ( over a thousand political prisoners, as well as several dead activists)--and time, with over two months of a junta and media blackout of leftist issues and leaders. The left not only has to mount campaigns in these impossible conditions, they have to monitor the voting for intimidation and fraud. How can this rightwing junta be trusted to run an election? It can't be. Period.

A fair election requires more than restoration of Zelaya as president. (And he is termed out--he can't run.) It requires democratic conditions in the country--free and open debate, access to candidates, freedom to travel and to assemble, and freedom from fear and retribution. And, really, it requires an independent entity to conduct the election--which the OAS is equipped to do. And it needs to be from start to finish, from now until after the election (and preferably with a delayed election, so the left can catch up, and proper democratic conditions are fully restored). Election monitoring groups can't just drop in, on election day, and declare an election fair or tainted or stolen. They require months--and sometimes years--of preparation. And they will not do it unless the government invites them, and all parties are agreed to it. Something tells me this junta wants no one conducting this election except them and their henchmen, and no one even monitoring it.

The OAS has already said that it will not recognize the results of this election. What this means is that the Clinton-McCain faction in the US cannot get away with this set-up for a stolen election by the right. They will try, I suspect. But the rest of Latin America will not let them get away with it. I'm afraid that the case has become rather strong that Clinton is playing a double-game. I don't have certain confirmation, but it sure looks that way, on the evidence thus far. And I don't know if she's carrying out Obama policy, or sabotaging it. Certainly the Bushwhacks--and their moles in the State Dept., the Pentagon and other places--are trying to sabotage Obama's stated policy of peace, respect and cooperation in Latin America. What his real policy is, I'm not sure. And what hawk/dove struggles might be going on, within the Obama administration, I'm not sure either. But what I expect is for the US to try to say the results of this junta-run election are valid, and that this settles the rightwing/military coup problem and the political disputes in Honduras. I don't see how they will get Zelaya to go along with this. I doubt he will. And we'll see what happens with that. But if this happens--the US endorsing a junta-run election--then we will know that all the duplicity in US policy up to this point has not been confusion, or hawk/dove controversy, or Bushwhack sabotage, but has been US support for this coup from the beginning.

One more step toward (or away from) that conclusion will be the US stance toward the election, if it is not properly run (to OAS standards). This puts the candidates and potential candidates in the election in an excruciatingly difficult position. If the US endorses the election, regardless of OAS opinion, and the junta is thereby further entrenched, those who do not participate in the election lose all opportunity for an official voice in the government. They will not be able to vote in congress. They will not be able to mitigate or oppose junta policy in any official position--as congress members, or mayors, or in other offices. In a rigged election, most of them wouldn't have a chance anyway, but some could conceivably be elected, to make the election look legit.

Also, if the US does this, it will likely flood Honduras with US tax dollars and more "free trade for the rich" to make up for the boycotts of other Latin American countries. So it's possible the US could succeed with this strategy. They won't get away with politically. Their name will be mud throughout the region, and many US deals will be imperiled. That's what the Bushwhacks want. They want war in South America--not partnership and cooperation. They want to take resources by force, and re-subjugate the many countries that have freed themselves from US dictation by electing leftist governments. And they are setting up a war--with these seven new US military bases in Colombia and other actions--and probably by this coup in Honduras (which is openly backed by Pukes, and funded by John McCain's "International Republican Institute" with US tax dollars). And so far, Obama is just letting them do it. But whether this is out of caution (he'll strike later), or powerlessness (doesn't yet have full control of the government), or deals he made--and what Clinton's role is--are still unclear.