[News] A Week Before “Elections” in Honduras, Candidate Resignations

[Anti-Imperialist News]

A Week Before “Elections” in Honduras, Candidate 
Resignations, More Censorship and Repression



Independent Presidential Candidate and Liberal 
Party Vice Presidential Candidate Among Those Who Withdrew from the Ballot



By Tamar Sharabi
Special to The Narco News Bulletin

http://www.narconews.com/Issue62/article3946.html

November 22, 2009

TEGICUGALPA, HONDURAS, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 
2009: Nine days before the Honduran elections are 
scheduled to take place, Channel 36, Cholusat 
Sur, has been taken off the air once again. A 
parallel signal has been transmitting over the 
station. Initially airing pornography, now the 
same movie has been on repeat for the second day 
in a row. This new attack on the press comes the 
morning after Micheletti announced that he would 
be leaving the Presidency ‘provisionally’ from 
November 25 until December 2 for the country “to 
concentrate on the electoral process and not on the political crisis.”

Micheletti’s announcement has been “welcomed” by 
the US State Department which currently along 
with Panama and Colombia are the only countries 
recognizing the elections. Micheletti added that 
he would return if there were threats to 
security. Officially the armed forces have been 
turned over to the Supreme Electoral Tribunal 
(TSE) 30 days prior to the elections. The 
National Front Against the Coup D’état in an 
announcement called the “absence” of Micheletti’s 
“dictatorship
only a maneuver to hide the 
totalitarian role of the de facto regime and the 
armed forces that have been applied to an 
illegitimate, illegal and fraudulent electoral process.”


Honduras Political Process

For some background on Honduran politics, there 
are 18 regional departments in the country where 
each is represented in Congress in accordance 
with its population. There are a total of 128 
Congresspeople (Diputados), 23 of which are from 
Francisco Morazan (F.M.) where the capital 
Tegucigalpa is located, and 20 from Cortes, home 
to the largest industrial city, San Pedro Sula. 
There are five registered political parties with 
the following members in the National Congress: 
Liberal (62), National (55), Democratic Union 
(5), Christian Democracy (4), and the Innovation and Unity Party (2).

Each party nominates the maximum number of 
Congressional representatives for their 
department’s election. Therefore going to the 
polls in Tegucigalpa, one may choose 23 
candidates among 115 faces and sometimes more if 
including independent candidates. Ballots have a 
photograph of each candidate that runs for these 
elected positions. Citizens vote on three ballots 
for the presidency, diputados and mayors. (The 
day Zelaya was ousted the population was supposed 
to vote on creation of ‘the cuarta urna’ meaning the fourth ballot box.)

Generally, the electoral process is overseen by 
the TSE, which according to the Electoral Law 
(Decree 44-2004) is an autonomous and independent 
organization. Their argument to validate the 
elections lies in that the convocation for the 
general elections was made on the May 29, 2009, 
almost one month before the coup took place. 
Interestingly, two of the three presiding judges 
were illegally appointed while Micheletti was 
then President of Congress. Enrique Ortez 
Sequeira, formerly a member of the City Council 
of Tegucigalpa (L) and David Matamoros Batzon 
(N), formerly a member of Congress are both 
constitutionally not allowed to preside over the 
process given their posts as elected officials when they were appointed.

Since August 11, the National Front Against the 
Coup D’état has communicated that without the 
restitution of President Manuel Zelaya they would 
boycott the elections. Despite all the 
international organizations that will not 
recognize the elections including the European 
Union, the Rio Group, the UN, UnaSur and the OEA, 
the TSE and the de facto government insist 
elections will be free, transparent and take 
place as scheduled. However, on Nov 8 El Heraldo 
published an article saying that “calls against 
the election process on November 29 will not go unpunished.”

Padre Andres Tamayo, an El Salvadorian priest 
naturalized as a Honduran citizen, is among those 
with charges against him in the District 
Attorney’s office for openly calling to boycott 
the elections. He has won the prestigious Goldman 
environmental prize in 2005 for protecting the 
forests in Olancho and has been living in 
Honduras for the last 26 years. After spending 56 
days in the Brazilian Embassy and needing to 
return to El Salvador for personal reasons, his 
naturalization status was revoked and he was escorted out of the country.

Another interesting charge includes Andres Pavon, 
the President of CODEH, (Committee for the 
Defense of Human Rights in Honduras), who is 
charged with “defamation of Romeo Vasquez 
Velasquez,” the general of the armed forces. 
After publically expressing concern that a 
massacre was planned for Election Day and that 
Hondurans should stay at home to avoid hostility, 
he has also been charged for “impeding the elections.”



Candidates Withdraw from Ballot

While the official campaign season began August 
31, many candidates have been more concerned with 
solving the political crisis than focusing on 
campaigning. As part of the resistance front, 
they argue that elections will legitimize the 
coup and that the country does not meet the 
conditions for free and fair elections. Carlos H. 
Reyes is the first ever independent candidate to 
run for President in Honduras. He withdrew 
officially on November 8 after citing that “The 
observers contracted by the Supreme Tribunal 
Electoral are not a guarantee for the security 
and transparency of the electoral process because 
they are the same organizations that have justified the coup d’etat.”

Maria Margarita Zelaya Rivas, the “designado” or 
Vice Presidential candidate for the majority 
party in Congress, the Liberal party, (and cousin 
of President Zelaya) also withdrew her candidacy 
stating “my resignation speaks for
 those that 
cannot express their thoughts for fear that the 
de facto government will take reprisals against them.”

The Democratic Unification Party (UD), which has 
been the only party to officially denounce the 
coup, decided in an assembly on Nov 21 to 
participate in the electoral process after 
initially denouncing them. If they would have 
pulled out of the elections, the Electoral Law 
(Article 96) states that they would no longer be 
recognized as an official party. The Secretary of 
the Board of Directors of UD, Martin Pineda 
defended the party’s decision to remain in the 
elections explaining “one scene is on the streets 
but it is also important institutionally
 and it 
is a place that we should not abandon.” Many 
members of the resistance movement are calling 
them traitors for changing their position.



Official Resignations

On Friday November 20, 146 days since the coup, 
people awaited the arrival of approximately 30 
electoral candidates to officially resign their 
candidacy. According to Rafael Barahona, a member 
of Zelaya’s party in resistance, many candidates 
have strategically waited until the last week to 
resign so that their respective parties have less 
time to name a new candidate. This will be a 
challenge for the TSE who by law must accept 
resignations until Election Day but will also 
unlikely have time to change the ballots.

In an article in La Tribuna, Secretary of the 
TSE, David Matamoros stated that only 0.1% of the 
candidates have resigned officially and that 
there were “serious problems” with removing the 
photographs of all the candidates that will 
withdraw. The article also claims that “Judge 
Enrique Ortez Sequeira, had informed prosecutors 
of the actions of the protesters, who retreated 
when they were tired of shouting.” 
Unsurprisingly, they would like to inform their 
readership that there will be consequences againt 
people who protest against the elections. 
However, the participants did not retire from the 
protest because they were tired. In fact, at 2 
p.m. uniformed police and also members of the 
Special Command “Çobra” unit (COECO, in its 
Spanish initials) intimidated the people to 
leave. Though threatening the protesters with 
their clubs and cans of tear gas neither was 
ultimately used because the resistance movement peacefully evacuated the area.

Below is an unofficial list of candidates (the 
TSE would not provide an official one) that have withdrawn their candidacies.

Presidential

Carlos H Reyes, Presidential Candidate (Indep)
Maria Margarita Zelaya Rivas, ‘Designada 
Presidencial’ (Equivalent to Vice President), (L)

Diputados, equivalent to Congresspersons
Leonardo Mejía Bonilla, Cortes (L)
Ricardo Gamero Cortes, Cortes, (L)
Edis Antonio Moncada Eguigure, Suplente F.M. (L)
Jorge Antonio Yánes Fernandez, Olancho (UD)
Marco Tulio Fúnez, F.M. (UD)
Lino Enamorado Izaguirre, F.M. (UD)
María Carmela López, Yoro (UD)
Andres Martinez, F.M. (UD)
José María Martínez, Yoro (UD)
Ana Rosa Vda. de Mejía, Cortes, (L)
Rafael Edgardo Barahona Osorio, F.M. (L)
Marlene Paz, Cortes, (UD)
Carlos Ponce, Paraiso (PINU)
José Isidro Ponce, Olancho (UD)
José Edgardo Castro Rodríguez, Cortes, (L)
Elvia Argentina Valle Villalta, Diputada, Copan (L)
German Zepeda, Cortes (UD)

Mayors

Juventino Bonillo, Saba, Colon (Indep)
Faustino Martínez, San Pedro Sula, Cortes (Indep)
Leonardo Martinez, Yoro (UD)
Rufino Vásquez Meza, San José, La Paz (UD)
Nelson Geovany Núñez, Lima, Cortes, (UD)
Harvin Pineda, San Pedro Sula, Cortes (Indep)
Donato Quiroz, San Antonio, Cortes (L)
Rodolfo Padilla Sunseri, San Pedro Sula, (L) 
(Actual Mayor that was also overthrown on the 
28th of June and has been in exile in Nicaragua)

Deputy Mayor

Miguel Angel Chavarría, San Antonio, Cortes (UD)
Juan Miguel (Lito) López Erazo, San Pedro Sula, Cortes (L)
María Gloria García, Lima, Cortes (UD)
Patricia Ivett Pineda, San Pedro Sula, Cortes (Indep)

(These positions are not popularly elected; they 
come in ‘package deals’ with the Mayors)

Regidor, equivalent to serving on City Council:
Nora Yesenia Córdova, Cortes, (Indep)
Gloria Marina Guzmán Cruz, Lima, Cortes
Mario Medrano, San Manuel, Cortes (N)
Orfilia de Mejía, San Pedro Sula, (L)
Wendy Munguía, Lima, Cortes (UD)
Regina Villamil Munoz, San Pedro Sula (Indep)




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