Andres Thomas Conteris
Hondurans protest election fraud during a massive march in the country’s capital Tegucigalpa, with hundreds of thousands calling on the current President Juan Orlando Hernandez (JOH) to leave.
On November 26, more than three million Hondurans went to the polls to vote for their next president. Since then, the country has ignited in protest, over allegations of fraud that gave the election to incumbent President Juan Orlando Hernández of the right-wing Partido Nacional.
Initial results had put opposition candidate Salvador Nasralla from the Partido Alianza ahead of Hernández of the Partido Nacional, the party that took power following the 2009 coup d’état against then-President Manuel Zelaya, who was democratically elected.
Protesters have gathered in nearly every city in the country, setting up barricades in neighborhoods and blocking major highways. According to Jesus Garza, a political analyst and resident of Siguatepeque in the department of Comayagua, the mobilizations have grown larger in many cities than the protests against the coup in 2009.
As the protests have increased, so have reports of violence, including a fire set in Siguatepeque November 30 as angry residents marched on the other side of town. Nasralla, in an interview with Radio Progreso, accused the government of infiltrating the protests and causing the destruction.
In a recent interview, Garza agreed, noting that the violence is being used to justify a security crackdown. “The protests have been peaceful,” he said. “The government is provoking the chaos in order to justify the state of emergency.”
“The protests have been peaceful. The government is provoking the chaos in order to justify the state of emergency.”
On December 2, the Honduran government established a countrywide state of siege to quell unrest. The declaration suspends the constitution, deploys the military and military police across the country, and establishes a curfew between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. The state of siege also limits media access to reporting on the crisis.
The state of siege has already turned deadly.
In Tegucigalpa, military police enforcing the curfew shot and killed nineteen-year-old Kimberly Dayana Fonseca at one of the barricades in her neighborhood. At least six other people were killed in cities across the country, including La Ceiba and San Pedro Sula. At least twenty other people have been injured in clashes with military police.
Despite the state of siege, protests against the election have continued across the country.
On December 3, tens of thousands of Hondurans gathered in Honduras’s capital, Tegucigalpa, to protest the election fraud, making it among the largest protests in the country’s history. The following day, the government finally issued results of the contested election, giving the election to Hernández.
The increasingly dangerous situation created by the alleged fraud in the vote count contrasts with the state of euphoria that followed the initial results that gave the election to the opposition.
The increasingly dangerous situation created by the alleged fraud in the vote count contrasts with the state of euphoria that followed the initial results that gave the election to the opposition.
“There were celebrations across the country,” Garza said. “The early results showed that it was possible for the opposition to win, since in past elections at this point the candidate with that type of lead usually won.”
The Honduran agency overseeing the elections, El Tribunal Supremo Electoral, remained silent through the night on November 26, contrary to previous elections. At 1:30 in the morning on November 27, the body held a press conference at which it announced that Nasralla had a narrow lead over Orlando Hernández.
But as the opposition celebrated, the election agency’s computer system crashed. When the system finally came back online, Nasralla’s narrow lead began to disappear.
On December 1, Nasralla’s Partido Alianza issued a statement raising eleven points of concern over the calculations of the results, such as the manipulation of votes in several departments, including the Department of Lempira where Hernández is from.
Through it all, the Trump Administration has remained largely silent.
“The United States urges calm and patience as the results are tabulated,” said U.S. State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert during a press conference on November 29. “We urge all candidates to respect the results once those results are announced.”
Andres Thomas Conteris
Scenes from protests Sunday, December 3, in Tegucigalpa, Honduras.
The conflict over the election highlights the deterioration of Honduran society following the 2009 coup d’état against President Manuel Zelaya. The Partido Alianza found support among the youth of Honduras, and the vote saw a massive participation of young voters that had grown of age in the years following the post-coup.
According to the Honduran constitution, Orlando Hernández was not permitted to run for a second term. But his administration used a 2016 controversial court ruling to allow this to occur.
It is important to note that opponents of Zelaya justified the 2009 coup on grounds that he was seeking to change the constitution to permit him to serve a second term.
In the years since the coup, Orlando Hernández and the Partido Nacional championed the interests of business and the military. But the Partido Nacional has also developed a close relationship with narco-trafficking interests in Honduras.
The growing political crisis in Honduras has led many to be fearful of what the future may hold for the country.
“This feels almost like a civil war,” one resident of Siguatepeque told me, on condition of anonymity. “We thought we had the official results, but it continues to remain the same [as before the election]. The people will not stand for this.”
Jeff Abbott is an independent journalist currently based out of Guatemala. His work has appeared in NACLA Report on the Americas, In These Times, and Upside Down World. Follow him on Twitter @palabrasdeabajo