[News] Honduras Election Court Sides With 'Fraud' Candidate Hernandez as Protests Rage On

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Honduras-Election-Court-Sides-With-Fraud-Candidate-Hernandez-as-Protests-Rage-On-20171217-0022.html 



  Honduras Election Court Sides With 'Fraud' Candidate Hernandez as
  Protests Rage On

Published 17 December 2017
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The Supreme Electoral Tribunal of Honduras or TSE has officially 
declared that lawyer and incumbent President Juan Orlando Hernandez has 
won the country's scandal-plagued presidential elections which resulted 
in weeks of unrest and accusations of fraud by the country's broad 
leftist popular forces who united behind contender Salvador Nasralla.

    *RELATED: *
    Honduras: Opposition Supporters Hold Nationwide Protests
    <https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Honduras-Opposition-Supporters-Hold-Nationwide-Protests-20171215-0006.html>

According to the TSE's official ballot count, Hernandez won the Nov. 26 
elections with 1,410,888 votes amounting to 42.95 percent of total 
ballots cast, narrowly beating Nasralla by a razor-thin margin of 1.53 
percentage points.

Hernandez, a 49-year-old lawyer with middle-class social roots, has a 
“law and order” reputation for having spearheaded a harsh crackdown on 
drug cartels and criminal gangs during his first term in office.

While Nasralla, a 64-year-old journalist and businessman, is one of 
Honduras’ best-known faces and was backed by former President Manuel 
Zelaya, a leftist ousted in a Washington-backed coup in 2009.

Amid the controversial declaration of victory, head of the Electoral 
Observation Mission of the Organization of American States (EOM/OAS) in 
Honduras and former Bolivian President Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga said, in a 
presser, that a number of unexplained discrepancies were found in the 
electoral process.

Quiroga explained that the absence of an audit trail creates additional 
challenges to properly assessing the result of the polls and the entire 
process will be examined by the mission.

The lead observer fingered quality control during the election as a 
major issue regarding obtaining clearly established figures, adding that 
the systems and procedures may not have been equipped to shoulder the 
process workload.

The announcement will likely feed the unrest that's engulfed city 
centers across Honduras, where popular forces have united behind an 
Opposition Alliance that has held massive protests while accusing the 
government of using gangs to terrorize the population and engage in 
looting in an attempt to delegitimize the pro-Nasralla forces.

Reacting to the TSE's announcement, Zelaya tweeted a call for immediate 
street mobilizations across the country "in all public places." The 
popular former president remains a powerful figure in the Opposition 
Alliance.

Zelaya later said during a press conference that  "We are in another of 
the most important moments of our history (...) The solution to this 
national tragedy is in the hands of the Honduran people," the 
ex-president reiterated.

On Sunday, Nasralla traveled to Washington, D.C. to meet with 
Secretary-General of the Organization of American States Luis Almagro to 
personally convey his disappointment with what he described as the 
"fraud" that characterized the country's electoral process.

"Serious questions" still surround the results of Honduras' presidential 
elections last month, Almagro tweeted on Sunday.

Just prior to the election, Nasralla appeared set for an upset victory 
over Hernandez. However, the ballot-counting process suddenly halted for 
more than a day and began leaning in favor of Hernandez after resuming.

*"The people say: 'JOH is not our President,' we must mobilize 
immediately in all public places. They are violating the will of the 
people."*

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Nasralla said that if the TSE proclaimed him to be president-elect of 
Honduras he would return to the capital Tegucigalpa for celebrations, 
but if Hernandez is declared winner he would “humbly return to see the 
reaction of the people".

He also said that while visiting the United States he would meet with 
representatives of the State Department and human rights organizations 
to seek a solution to the political crisis which has left at least 18 
people dead.

"Among all the possible solutions to the crisis, none allows for the 
whitewashing of an electoral process characterized by serious crimes 
committed by different people under the auspices of the Electoral 
Tribunal, which has sought – regardless of the costs and the risks – to 
impose these fraudulent election results," he added.

The opposition candidate also stressed that he would act "with 
responsibility and a patriotic sense to seek a peaceful solution to the 
problem caused by their intention to illegally remain in power at any 
cost – regardless of the humanitarian, economic, social and political 
consequences for democracy."

"It is clear that there was fraud before, during and after the elections 
(...) The President of the Republic at this moment is an impostor, and 
the Honduran people know it," Nasralla said in a video posted on 
the Facebook.

Following the 2009 coup that ousted Zelaya, Honduras was plunged into a 
brutal cycle of violence where vulnerable civilians – including 
Indigenous people, social rights fighters and human rights defenders – 
were targeted for murder in the thousands. The Central American country 
became deeply mired in endemic poverty and criminal activity by violent 
drug gangs as it earned the ignominious title of being the “murder 
capital of the world.”

The country also hemorrhaged desperate migrants and refugees – including 
many children who were unaccompanied by parents – desperate to flee the 
brutal social conditions reinforced by the U.S.-installed neocolonial 
government that took the place of Zelaya's center-left administration.

-- 
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