Honduras elects a new president. What now?

[BrainGlutton]

Honduras went ahead with its scheduled election on Sunday, while ousted President Manuel Zelaya remained holed up in the Brazilian embassy. Porfirio Lobo Sosa of the opposition/conservative National Party won with 56% of the vote – story here. Turnout figures are highly controversial:

The Supreme Electoral Tribunal said 61% of registered voters cast ballots, a big jump from the barely half who voted in the 2005 election won by Zelaya. Local media, which backed the coup, hailed a “historic” turnout.

Before results were announced, the United States, Panama and Peru signalled they would accept the election as a way out of the crisis. Canada and the European Union are expected to follow suit.

But critics said the election was neither free nor fair and had whitewashed the coup. Leftist governments including those of Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador and Venezuela said they would not recognise the vote, branding it a farce which could embolden coup-minded conservative forces across the region.

Zelaya, who was not on the ballot, had called for a boycott. After polls closed he said information from a quarter of polling stations indicated only around 35% voted. “As president of Honduras I declare this process illegitimate,” he said.

In the absence of established international observer groups, who shunned the election, it was difficult to verify the turnout independently. Officials at polling centres visited by the Guardian gave estimates ranging from just 30% in poor areas to as high as 70% in wealthier ones.

<snip>

Voting was mostly peaceful but security forces used teargas and batons to break up a demonstration in the city of San Pedro Sula. A day earlier they raided the offices of pro-Zelaya groups, saying they were looking for weapons and evidence linked to small homemade bombs which had damaged polling centres.

In recent weeks the de facto authorities curbed civil liberties and cracked down on critical media and Zelaya supporters, leaving hundreds injured and detained and at least 10 reportedly killed. Amnesty International demanded that the identities and whereabouts of people arrested yesterday be revealed.

Latin American leaders are divided on how to react:

The victory of conservative opposition candidate Porfirio Lobo in Sunday’s presidential election prompted differing reactions at the meeting of Ibero-American leaders in Portugal that opened on Monday and quickly became the number one issue at the summit.

Latin American diplomatic heavyweight Brazil had condemned the vote even before the result was known, as did Argentina and Venezuela, while Colombia and some smaller states, including Panama, supported the election process.

Opponents of the election said was illegitimate because it was backed by military leaders of a coup that ousted leftist President Manuel Zelaya in June and could end chances for Zelaya to return to power and complete his term, which ends in January.

As for the U.S. – Obama backed the election, after several changes of position.

So, what now? Does Lobo simply take office in January, and Honduras moves on? I don’t think the popular discontent with the constitution and the regime are about to die down.

Previous relevant GD threads posted since the coup of 06/28/09:

Honduras: Who’s correct?

sigh No, Manuel Zelaya is not an “anti-American socialist”

Explain Jim DeMint’s reaction to the Honduran Constitutional Crisis

U.S. calls Honduran coup a coup, cuts aid, might not recognize November election results

[BrainGlutton]

In other Latin American news, former leftist guerilla Jose Alberto Mujica Cordano (a/k/a El Pepe), of the Broad Front coalition of left-wing parties, was just elected president of Uruguay. Story here.

[Qin_Shi_Huangdi]

More proof Zelaya was just waiting to be shooed out of Honduras.

[Aji_de_Gallina]

They oust the president legally and then hold an election where the sitting president did not run. I’, sure it’s a LatinAmerican first.

Let Hondurans get on with their country.

[BrainGlutton]

@Curtis LeMay

More proof Zelaya was just waiting to be shooed out of Honduras.

:dubious: Eh? What does this “prove”? Of course the conservative won – Zelaya (who would not have been a candidate in any case) told his supporters to boycott the election.

[BrainGlutton]

@Aji_de_Gallina

They oust the president legally . . .

:rolleyes: Have you not noticed that practically every other government on Earth decided otherwise?

[Qin_Shi_Huangdi]

@BrainGlutton

:dubious: Eh? What does this “prove”? Of course the conservative won – Zelaya (who would not have been a candidate in any case) told his supporters to boycott the election.

Most likely because they knew they were going to lose.

@BrainGlutton

:rolleyes: Have you not noticed that practically every other government on Earth decided otherwise?

Well you liberals are the people who think we shouldn’t interfere in Latin America so if this coup ain’t our businesss than let the Hondurans remove their President if they wish.

[GIGObuster]

@Curtis LeMay

Most likely because they knew they were going to lose.

Well you liberals are the people who think we shouldn’t interfere in Latin America so if this coup ain’t our businesss than let the Hondurans remove their President if they wish.

You are ignoring that there was also a protest element, they rejected the party that removed the president.

As I mentioned before, the best was that no one should had come a winner in this situation, not Zelaya, but even less the coup plotters, I still think that to discourage other coups the coup plotters need to suffer, if not in Honduras, economic sanctions to any of their fortunes and business outside Honduras.

[BrainGlutton]

@Curtis LeMay

Most likely because they knew they were going to lose.

Of course they were. You don’t really think this was a free election, do you? That’s not something that can happen under what amounts to martial law.

[Qin_Shi_Huangdi]

@GIGObuster

You are ignoring that there was also a protest element, they rejected the party that removed the president.

As I mentioned before, the best was that no one should had come a winner in this situation, not Zelaya, but even less the coup plotters, I still think that to discourage other coups the coup plotters need to suffer, if not in Honduras, economic sanctions to any of their fortunes and business outside Honduras.

And worsen the world economy and piss off a government who is more or less eager to be our allies?

Also do you really think Zelaya would have won in any circumstance?

[Der_Trihs]

@Curtis LeMay

Well you liberals are the people who think we shouldn’t interfere in Latin America so if this coup ain’t our businesss than let the Hondurans remove their President if they wish.

Generally, liberals oppose intervention because we are usually intervening in favor of the bad guys. A military coup is the sort of thing we normally intervene to support.

[Aji_de_Gallina]

@BrainGlutton

:rolleyes: Have you not noticed that practically every other government on Earth decided otherwise?

I defer to the Honduran congress and supreme court in all Honduran legal issues. If they say it’s legal, it is.

[BrainGlutton]

@Curtis LeMay

Also do you really think Zelaya would have won in any circumstance?

He would not have been a candidate in any circumstances, coup or no coup.

[Qin_Shi_Huangdi]

@Der_Trihs

Generally, liberals oppose intervention because we are usually intervening in favor of the bad guys. A military coup is the sort of thing we normally intervene to support.

Than what about Castro who launched a revolution basically the same as a coup.

[BrainGlutton]

@Curtis LeMay

Than what about Castro who launched a revolution basically the same as a coup.

No, it isn’t.

A coup d’état (pronounced /ˌkuːdeɪˈtɑː/, (plural: coups d’état) or coup for short, is the sudden unconstitutional deposition of a government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another, either civil or military. A coup d’état succeeds when the usurpers establish their legitimacy if the attacked government fail to thwart them, by allowing their (strategic, tactical, political) consolidation and then receiving the deposed government’s surrender; or the acquiescence of the populace and the non-participant military forces.

Typically, a coup d’état uses the extant government’s power to assume political control of the country. In Coup d’État: A Practical Handbook, military historian Edward Luttwak says: “A coup consists of the infiltration of a small, but critical, segment of the state apparatus, which is then used to displace the government from its control of the remainder”, thus, armed force (either military or paramilitary) is not a defining feature of a coup d’état.

A revolution is a very different thing.

[GIGObuster]

@Curtis LeMay

And worsen the world economy and piss off a government who is more or less eager to be our allies?

Also do you really think Zelaya would have won in any circumstance?

:rolleyes:

Zelaya was not going to run even on the last deal that was made, a deal that would had put Zelaya back just to demonstrate that the coup plotters had just lost symbolically, not even that was granted by the idiot Micheletti.

Incidentally the last deal was made with the help of the USA, The coup leaders decided to spit on the “allies”

With friends like that…

[Der_Trihs]

@Curtis LeMay

Than what about Castro who launched a revolution basically the same as a coup.

As said, not the same. And as I recall, the leader Castro overthrew, Batista, was himself in power due to a coup.

[mswas]

We can go back to forgetting how to find Honduras on a map?

[adaher]

Whatever the legality of the coup, it’s academic now. Zelaya was not eligible to run in this election. Might as well say that Allende is the current legal President of Chile despite several elections where other candidates won.

[BrainGlutton]

@adaher

Whatever the legality of the coup, it’s academic now. Zelaya was not eligible to run in this election. Might as well say that Allende is the current legal President of Chile despite several elections where other candidates won.

Zelaya’s position is that he’s the legitimate president only until his term expires in January. But that doesn’t mean the result is “academic.” The question is whether an election held under these circumstances can be considered legitimate. When Lobo takes office, he’s going to face denial of his legitimacy his whole term, both on-the-ground in Honduras and from other governments. It makes no difference, there, that no one else will be claiming to be the legitimate president of Honduras. The whole constitutional system will be in question.