Honduran congress rejects Zelaya return; Election boycott appears widespread

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Socialist Action decemBER 2009 11 In Honduras the Nov. 29 election is finished, as is the Dec. 2 congressional vote to decide whether or not to restore the ousted, democratically-elected President Manuel “Mel” Zelaya.

In the election, Porfirio Lobo of the conservative National Party (one of the two traditionally dominant parties of Honduras) won the most votes by all counts. However, controversy has emerged regarding the percentage of voters that abstained from voting.

Figures from the coup-installed regime and correspondingly friendly press put the figure at 30-40%. But the National Resistance Front (the primary coordinating body of demonstrations and strikes against the coup, which had led the call for a boycott) and more liberal press have put the abstention figure at 6070%. At that rate, abstentionism in this election would eclipse all past elections held since the democratic transition in the early 1980s and signal a victory for those that called for an electoral boycott.

The day after the election the National Resistance Front organized an automobile caravan through the capital of Tegucigalpa to celebrate the victory of the electoral boycott. Meanwhile, the de facto government, president-elect Lobo, and the U.S. government all claimed the election was a success.

The present course of the Honduran ruling elite and the U.S. government had become clear following the signing of the Oct. 30 “Tegucigalpa-San Jose Agreement.” In that accord—signed by both ousted President Zelaya and de facto government President Micheletti—both sides had agreed to abide by a decision of the Honduran congress on the matter of Zelaya’s reinstatement. While it was not written in the agreement explicitly, Zelaya was led to believe that the vote would be taken very soon thereafter and that he would be reinstalled. In return for this, the deal seemed to be, Zelaya would support the electoral process of Nov. 29 (in which neither he nor Micheletti were eligible to run).

But very soon after the Tegucigalpa-San Jose Agreement had been signed, a representative of the Obama administration (Above) Police officer takes aim at pro-democracy forces during the first days of the coup.

stated that the U.S. government would recognize the victor of the elections whether or not Zelaya were restored. This immediately destroyed any chance that the Honduran congress would act quickly on the matter, despite repeated demands from Zelaya and many Latin American governments that the vote on Zelaya’s restoration be held.

The Obama administration and the coup government went to great lengths to portray the elections as legitimate, essentially instructing other countries that they had no real choice in the matter. The New York Times reported on one exchange at a meeting of the Organization of American States (OAS), which was very telling: The