By Carlos Mauricio Ferolla on October 29, 2021
Xiomara-Castro
On November 28 presidential elections will be held in Honduras. The electoral campaign is taking place in a critical context in the Central American country. The pro-government Nasry Asfura and the leader of LIBRE, Xiomara Castro, appear with the possibility of competing head to head for the presidency. Two competing models of the country and a latent threat of fraud.
Honduras is going through a structural crisis that worsened with the COVID-19 pandemic: 73% poverty, 52% extreme poverty, 72% of the population in the informal economy and a strong migratory crisis. In these presidential elections, social disputes are condensed and the wounds caused by the political process opened with the coup d’état against Manuel Zelaya in 2009, orchestrated by the United States and carried out by the Armed Forces, the Honduran Creole oligarchy and the political class, are rekindled.
In this regard, we spoke with Gilberto Ríos, activist and candidate for LIBRE congressman, who said that “the 2009 coup d’état was the end of the progressive cycle that had begun in Latin America with the arrival of Hugo Chávez to the government of Venezuela. After that a process of reversal of the political scenarios for the left in the continent. In Honduras, the coup continues to be perpetuated through the electoral frauds that followed in 2013 and 2017.”
After the rupture of the constitutional order and the removal of Zelaya, a process of struggle opened up between the sectors of Honduran power and popular organizations and movements. The three governments that followed, from Roberto Micheletti (2009-2010), Porfirio Lobo Sosa (2010-2014) and Juan Orlando Hernández -JOH- (2014 to the present) sought to impose a neoliberal extractivist and foreign intervention model based on authoritarianism and repression.
This plan was carried out by strengthening the presidential figure, creating institutional structures that weaken the Congress and the Judiciary, sanctioning norms such as the Wiretapping Law (2011) to exercise control over civil society and reinforcing the repressive apparatus, such as the creation of the National Interinstitutional Security Force (FUSINA) and the Military Police of Public Order (PMOP); the latter was integrated by officers who were trained by the US Southern Command.
Corruption and repression
A program of privatizations promoted by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) was also carried out in key sectors such as energy, water, social security, mining, health and education. This went hand in hand with the dispossession of indigenous and Afro-descendant communities of their lands, and concessions to foreign companies – linked to a few wealthy Honduran families – for the development of hydroelectric and mining projects.
At the same time, a network of corruption and illegal business linked to drug trafficking was growing; so much so, that the JOH government is called a narco-state, with evidence showing how illicit capital linked to drug trafficking has been used to assert its power and finance political campaigns.
On this, Ríos points out: “Juan Orlando Hernández has a brother imprisoned in the United States and now sentenced to life imprisonment for being part of the drug cartels. They move enormous amounts of illicit capital generated by drug trafficking. This structure was installed in the region directly from the White House, the State Department, the CIA and the Southern Command”.
The repressive and authoritarian policy of the regime installed with the coup unleashed a spiral of violence, which has taken on a structural dimension. Human rights violations, repression and disappearances have become a constant in Honduras. This has been denounced by organizations such as the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH), the Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras (OFRANEH) and the Committee of Relatives of the Detained and Disappeared in Honduras (COFADEH).
Two events illustrate the link between the repressive apparatus and the economic sectors and judicial impunity: one is the murder of the environmentalist and defender of the rights of the Lenca people, Berta Cáceres, on May 2, 2016, who died at the hands of hired killers linked to former military officers, families belonging to the Honduran oligarchy and executives of the company Desarrollos Energéticos Sociedad Anónima (DESA). The second case is the forced disappearances of members of the Garífuna community, following the kidnapping of five of its members on July 18, 2020, to which police agents are linked.
Resistance, unity and victory?
The articulations and processes of unity of social and popular organizations were fundamental to resist after the coup d’état. Since 2009, with the mobilizations in Tegucigalpa; the claims against corruption in 2015; the protests against fraud in 2017; the struggle of teachers and doctors against the privatization of education and health; as well as the resistance of indigenous and Afro-descendant populations in defense of their territories and against the advance of foreign companies, account for the diversity of the movements that agglutinate the Honduran popular field.
One of the expressions of unity was the National Front of Popular Resistance (FNRP) which in 2011 became the Liberty and Refoundation Party or LIBRE -led by Manuel Zelaya- which brought together former members of the Liberal Party, citizens’ groups against corruption and leftist sectors.
On June 16 of this year, the National Movement against ZEDE (Employment and Economic Development Zone) and for national sovereignty was constituted, being another of the articulations from popular organizations and movements, in this case to fight against these zones.
The ZEDE model is the card played by the JOH government to attract investment and generate employment, and consists of allowing private companies, often foreign, to have a free hand to manage labor and land. This model of private cities or zones freed from state regulations is, as Ríos points out, “the neoliberal model for investing the spurious capital of drug trafficking and corruption, and having labor under practically slave-like conditions, without any kind of rights”.
This project condenses the competing forces in the political chessboard of Honduras. On one side, the National Party (PN), allied to the oligarchy and transnational capital groups, and on the other side a group of social and popular organizations that have been resisting the implementation of this model. Of the presidential candidates with the possibility of winning, only the pro-government Nasry Asfura has positioned himself in favor, while Xiomara Castro of LIBRE and Yani Rosenthal of the Liberal Party (PL) have positioned themselves against.
Will there be electoral fraud?
There are 14 candidates for the presidency. But polls indicate that the dispute will be between Nasry Asfura and Xiomara Castro, and further behind is Yani Rosenthal. In the last few days, the political map has shifted because another of the candidates, and well positioned in the polls, Salvador Nasralla, withdrew his candidacy and entered into an alliance with Xiomara Castro. This leaves the LIBRE leader well positioned to put an end to 12 years of neoliberal and oligarchic government.
But the threat of fraud and electoral irregularities in the previous elections set off alarms about the outcome of the results. In this respect, Ríos pointed out: “Our problem is not to win against the right wing, but to win against fraud”. “The electoral reform approved in May of this year means that the National Party can no longer adulterate the electoral rolls, that there is a new national registry of persons and that we have a presence in the National Electoral Council”, he indicated.
In case Xiomara Castro is victorious on November 28 and returns to the path of a process of change truncated with the coup against Zelaya, Ríos affirmed “that we will return to the articulations and spaces of Latin American and Caribbean integration together with the progressive and leftist governments of the continent. In addition, we will prioritize the geopolitical relationship with China”.
Among the first measures of a LIBRE government are the elimination of the ZEDE, as well as rescuing national companies that were privatized, as is the case of the State Energy Company, eliminating the hourly employment law and restoring to workers the labor rights that were taken away, and advancing against corruption through an audit of the State. “It is fundamental to change the oligarchic character of the Honduran State towards a popular State”, added Ríos.
Central America is an unstable region, crossed by multiple crises, but with social and popular organizations that have been resisting the predatory effect of neoliberalism. The elections in Honduras become central both because of its geostrategic and political location and because of the wounds that were opened in 2009 and the winds of change that may come from there.
Source: Radio La Primerisima, translation Resumen Latinoamericano – English