The presidential candidate for the ruling Liberty and Refoundation party (LIBRE), Rixi Moncada, announced that an “electoral coup” was committed in the presidential elections on November 30. “Here in Honduras, I am not only facing the oligarchy and direct interference from Trump but also an ongoing electoral coup,” Moncada said in a press conference.
The vote count continues in Honduras, even though eight days have passed since election day. According to the authorities, the conservative Nasry Asfura, of the National Party of Honduras (PNH), has 40.2% of the votes, while the neoliberal Salvador Nasralla, of the Liberal Party of Honduras (PLH) has 39.5% of the votes. Just less than 20,000 votes separate them, so no official results have yet been given, despite more than 88% of the tally sheets being counted.
“Electoral coup”
According to Moncada, the elimination of a series of biometric requirements shortly before the elections was a key piece of the electoral fraud (or “electoral coup”, as the former minister of defense calls it) that has operated to prevent LIBRE from winning the presidency again.
Faced with this reality, LIBRE has demanded: “the total annulment of the elections” and requested an immediate “investigation” to understand what happened: “[The acts of electoral terrorism carried out through the transmission system must be investigated.”
The current ruling party has condemned the handling of the elections and their outcome: “LIBRE does not recognize the elections held under the interference and coercion of US President Donald Trump and the allied oligarchy that have attacked the Honduran people with an ongoing electoral coup, after sending millions of messages through different platforms threatening the people that if they vote for Rixi, they will not receive remittances in December, adulterating popular sovereignty when … it was demonstrated in the Plenary Session of Councilors that the transmission system’s source code had been manipulated without using the three keys of the security system.”
In addition, it has called for an “Extraordinary National Assembly for next Saturday, December 13.” LIBRE also called for demonstrations, local and departmental assemblies, protests, strikes, and sit-ins to express their rejection of what they consider a “coup against democracy”.
Rejection of Trump’s pardon for Juan Orlando Hernández
LIBRE also condemned the pardon granted by President Donald Trump to former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who was sentenced to 45 years in prison for his proven involvement (as determined by the US judicial system) in a drug trafficking scheme that brought hundreds of tons of cocaine into US territory.
Moncada emphasized that Donald Trump’s interference, both through his overt support for conservative candidate Nasry Asfura and his pardon of the former president (from the same party as Asfura), has “clouded the electoral process” and “altered popular sovereignty”.
“I never imagined interference of such magnitude as Trump’s in the Honduran presidential elections,” Moncada said in response to the US president’s seemingly spontaneous involvement in the elections. In this regard, Honduran Attorney General Johel Antonio Zelaya Alvarez on December 8, activated an arrest warrant for former President Juan Orlando Hernández and called on INTERPOL to “execute the international arrest warrant against former president Juan Orlando Hernández, accused of money laundering and fraud in the Pandora II case. Our fight is head-on.”
In this way, the Honduran left rejects foreign interference, which, in alliance with an alleged electoral manipulation plot, has robbed the citizenry of their democratic decision. For now, it remains to be seen what actions they will take and whether they will have a similar impact to the demonstrations in 2017 when Juan Orlando Hernández was accused of electoral fraud to govern the Central American country, which resulted in several deaths, injuries, and countless persecutions of the left and social movements.
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