Election farce

IN a brazen attempt to legitimise the military coup that ousted the democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya in June, the Honduran authorities held a presidential election in the last week of November. Porfirio Pepe Lobo, a right-wing candidate preferred by the oligarchy and the military, was duly declared elected.

The Barack Obama administration in the United States was quick to give the election the stamp of legitimacy. After the June 28 military coup, it had, after initial hesitation, added its voice to the international condemnation that followed. Along with the other members of the Organisation of American States (OAS), it had demanded the restoration of Zelaya to the presidency. But in the past few months, it became clear that Washington was backtracking on its commitment to restore democracy and the rule of law in the Central American nation.

The isolated, military-backed Honduran government could not have survived long without the tacit support of Washington. The U.S. largest military base in Latin America is in that country. The Honduran army is trained and armed by the U.S. The countrys economy is almost totally dependent on largesse from Washington.

Despite the inherent illegitimacy of the electoral exercise, the Obama administration hailed the results as a very important step forward for Honduras and the legitimate way out of the crisis that had engulfed the country after the military coup. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Arturo Valenzuela said that the election was consistent with the constitutional mandate to elect the President.

The U.S. also sent election observers, under the auspices of the International Republican Institute and the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, a move that showed the bipartisan support the coup-makers had come to enjoy in Washington. Both organisations are supported by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), an enthusiastic backer of the 2002 coup attempt in Venezuela and the colour revolutions in Eastern Europe.

In the five months that elapsed after the ouster of Zelaya, Washington had gone through the motions of negotiating agreements between Zelaya and the military-backed government. The first one was the San Jose accord, which the military-backed government failed to implement. The accord, mediated by Costa Rican President Oscar Aria, was to have restored Zelaya as a figurehead President. The deal also included an agreement by Zelaya that he would not tamper with the Constitution. It was Zelayas decision to hold a consultative non-binding plebiscite on the Constitution that led to his ouster. The Constitution itself is a legacy of the U.S.-backed military dictatorship that left office in 1983.

Then came the Tegucigalpa agreement, which called for the formation of a government of national unity and reconciliation. The military-backed government, after initially pretending to be flexible, refused Zelaya the dignity of serving out the remainder of his term (which was to end formally in February 2010). In the first week of December, the Honduran Parliament voted to deny Zelaya the opportunity to serve out the rest of his term. As part of the earlier U.S.-sponsored deal, the Honduran Parliament was supposed to reinstate Zelaya in exchange for international recognition of the November 29 election. The latest move by the anti-Zelaya forces will only result in the hardening of international opinion against the new government, which will be taking over in February.

Zelaya, who courageously returned to the country in October, remains holed up in the Brazilian embassy in the capital, Tegucigalpa, where he took refuge. He said that he would stay within the confines of the Brazilian embassy until the dictatorship is defeated. Zelaya, who had called for a boycott of the election, told mediapersons that according to information gathered by his supporters from the polling stations, two-thirds of the registered voters boycotted the election, thus making the exercise a farce.

The so-called fair and free election was held under the shadow of the gun. Since the coup, the military has been riding roughshod over trade union groups and poor neighbourhoods, which constitute Zelayas main support base. On election day, 40,000 troops were mobilised to intimidate the electorate. Rallies protesting against the election were brutally broken up. In many places, people were forcibly made to cast their votes. The military-backed government told citizens that abstention would be considered an illegal act. The Honduran Election Commission claimed that more than 65 per cent of the voters cast their votes. In the 2005 presidential election, when comparative peace prevailed, only 55 per cent had turned out to vote.

The National Front against the Coup dEtat, an umbrella grouping of the three main trade unions, human rights organisations and womens groups, characterised the election as fraudulent. The military had control over the ballot boxes and the computers that tabulated the results. The leading Opposition candidate, Carlos H. Reyes, withdrew in protest. Hundreds of candidates concurrently running for Congress and municipal offices also withdrew, questioning the fairness of the election. The two presidential candidates who remained in the fray supported the military coup.

Washingtons decision to recognise the legitimacy of the election has emboldened the right-wing Honduran political establishment. Porfirio Lobo, the victor, pronounced the military coup and the derailment of democracy as things of the past. Zelaya is just part of the past, it is over, he told reporters. Zelaya had defeated Lobo in the last presidential election.

However, it will not be easy for the country to re-enter the Latin American mainstream under the present dispensation. The Rio Group, an organisation comprising all the 25 Latin American nations, issued a statement in early November that it would not recognise the November 29 election if Zelaya was not first restored to office.

The leaders assembled at the Ibero-American summit in Portugal in the last week of November were also quick to criticise the attempts to legitimise the military coup. They issued a statement demanding the reinstatement of President Manuel Zelaya to the position that he was democratically elected for. The statement said that it was a fundamental step required for the return of constitutional normality.

Brazilian President Lula da Silva said through his spokesman that the election was an attempt to whitewash the coup. The U.S. government was very critical of Brazils decision to give refuge to Zelaya in its embassy in Tegucigalpa. Brazil, which has emerged as the regional superpower, has taken a leadership role in Latin America to the consternation of U.S. policymakers, who still like to consider Latin America as their political backyard.

But Washingtons close allies in the region, such as Colombia, Peru, Panama and Costa Rica, welcomed the election and indicated that they would follow the Obama administrations lead in recognising Lobo as the next President of Honduras. But the majority of Latin American nations remain steadfast in their rejection of the election. President Lula said, Its not possible to accept a coup, whether its a military coup or one dressed up as a civilian coup.

President Obamas endorsement of the election after his initial criticism of the coup has been a further cause of disappointment for many of his supporters. Obama had said in July that it would be a bad precedent if we start moving backwards into the era in which we are seeking military coups as a means of political transition, rather than democratic elections.

At the OAS summit held earlier this year, Obama told Latin American and Caribbean heads of state that the U.S. sought a new chapter of engagement with the region. The U.S. State Department had also issued a statement after the coup that the U.S. would not be able to support the outcome of an election that would not be fair, free and transparent. But the Obama administration, under pressure mainly from the Republican right wing, abruptly changed tack and granted legitimacy to the election and the military-backed government.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez had warned against trusting Washington on the issue of restoring democracy in Honduras from the very outset. Zelaya made the mistake of trusting Washington to be an honest broker and is now paying the price for his political naivety.