Consortiumnews
Apparent Election Theft in Honduras
December 4, 2017
In 2009, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton excused a coup in Honduras to
stop a possible second term by a progressive president, but the U.S. now
sits by as a right-wing president steals a second term, says Rick Sterling.
By Rick Sterling
Honduras is in crisis, again. The national election took place on Nov. 26
with results posted that night showing the challenger Salvador Nasralla with
a 5 percentage-point lead with 57 percent of the votes tallied. Then strange
things began to happen.
A map of Honduras.
After midnight on election night, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE)
stopped posting updates and effectively shut down for the next 36 hours. The
TSE's president, David Matamoros Batson, said the TSE had received 13,000
tally sheets but was missing 6,000 from the total. With just over 18,000
total, this does not quite add up. Then two hours later, Matamoros increased
the number of missing tally sheets to 7,500. When updates resumed, mid-day
last Tuesday, the results consistently favored the incumbent right-wing
President Juan Orlando Hernandez. The opposition lead steadily diminished
then disappeared.
The leader of the Opposition Coalition against the Dictatorship, Salvador
Nasralla, denounced the apparent malfeasance and protests commenced across
the country. Police and military have sometimes responded violently.
Numerous unarmed Hondurans have been killed over the past five days.
On Monday, more than a week after the election, the TSE announced results
giving a narrow victory to the incumbent National Party President Juan
Orlando Hernandez. As mass protests continue, the opposition has demanded a
recount of all the tally sheets received after the TSE shutdown.
The current National Party government derives from the 2009 military coup,
which overthrew the moderately progressive President Manuel Zelaya
supposedly because he simply considered the possibility of seeking a second
term. When Zelaya was kidnapped in the 2009 coup, he was flown directly from
Tegucigalpa to the U.S. government's Palmerola Air Base just 48 miles from
the capital.
After time on the ground there, with the coup leaders presumably consulting
with Washington, the kidnapped president was taken to Costa Rica. Five
months later an election was held to replace Zelaya. The election was widely
boycotted within Honduras but given the seal of approval by Washington.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the election made the coup a "moot
point."
Four years later, in 2013, there was another presidential election, which
included a new party: the Liberation and Refoundation Party known as LIBRE.
This party represented popular forces, which supported Zelaya and his
progressive policies - and emerged from the popular resistance to the coup.
The party quickly surpassed the traditional Liberal Party and presented a
serious challenge to Hernandez's National Party even as international
observers documented voter intimidation and other irregularities. Hernandez
assumed the presidency on Jan. 27, 2014.
(Ironically, despite the justification for ousting Zelaya - because he
allegedly considered seeking a second term in defiance of the constitution -
Hernandez's path for reelection was cleared away by a contentious 2016 court
ruling.
Former Honduran President Manuel Zelaya.
Ahead of the 2017 election, LIBRE forged a broader coalition with two
smaller parties to support Salvador Nasralla as their candidate. This
political alliance took the name the Coalition Against the Dictatorship and
former President Zelaya was head coordinator.
Days before the recent Honduras election The Economist published a
blockbuster article titled "Is Honduras Ruling Party Planning to Rig an
Election?" reporting: "The Economist has obtained a recording that, if
authentic, suggests the ruling party has plans to distort results in the
upcoming election." The two-hour recording is from a National Party training
session. It details five tactics used to influence election results: buy the
credentials of small party delegates who supervise the local polling place,
surreptitiously allow National Party voters to vote more than once, spoil
the votes for other candidates, damage the tally sheet which favors the
opponent so it cannot be transmitted electronically to election headquarters
- and expedite tally sheets favoring their party.
Thumb on the Scales
Besides the reported rigging schemes in the field, the election referees
were far from neutral. The Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) is led by
president David Matamoros Batson, who was previously Secretary General and a
member of Congress for the National Party.
Following is evidence of TSE misconduct and bias:
1 - TSE delayed posting results that favored the opposition candidate.
In the 2013 election, TSE started posting the election results at 6:13 p.m.
when just 24 percent of the total votes had been received. Those returns
gave the National Party candidate Juan Orlando Hernandez a 5 percentage
point lead.
This election, TSE acted differently. At 7:55 p.m., TSE President Matamoros
tweeted "We have received 40% of the results." But they did not post this.
They delayed posting the data until near midnight. Then they reported that
with 57.2 % of total votes counted the results were:
- Salvador Nasralla (Opposition Coalition Against the Dictatorship) with
855,847 votes = 45.17% of total.
- Juan Orlando Hernandez (National Party) with 761,892 votes = 40.22%
- Luis Zelaya (Liberal Party, no relation to ousted Manuel Zelaya) with
260,994 votes = 13.77% of total.
- Several other candidates had less than 1%.
Prior to the election, TSE expected to post the results from 70 percent of
the electorate on election night, raising the question of whether the TSE
was holding back more results.
2 - TSE changed the election procedure.
Honduras' election procedure is to count and tally the paper ballots at each
of the voting stations around the country. The tally sheet ('acta') is
signed off by representatives from each party, then scanned and transmitted
electronically to TSE headquarters where they are added to national totals
and posted.
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson meets with Honduran President Juan
Orlando Hernandez, at the Department of State, March 21, 2017. [State
Department photo/Public Domain]
Following the posting of results showing the opposition candidate with a
significant lead, at about midnight on election day, the TSE changed the
procedure and stopped posting results for the next 36 hours. TSE President
Matamoros arbitrarily changed the procedures.
The explanation was given by Matamoros at 1:39 p.m. on Nov. 27: "Today we
are going to start opening the ballot boxes coming in from across the
country to understand the ballots and results." Five minutes later, at 1:44
p.m., he added "We cannot give results until all the missing tally sheets
come in."
The situation was questioned by Spanish election observer Ramon Jauregui who
noted "There is no technical reason that explains the delay, because the
tallies from all 18000 polling places were transmitted electronically to the
@tsehonduras on the day of the election."
3 - TSE falsely reported the number of missing tally sheets.
At 1:56 p.m., Matamoros announced that the TSE had received 13,000 of the
total but are still missing 6,000 tally sheets ("actas"). "We have received
13,000 tallies from across the country ... we are missing 6,000". With a
total of 18,100 tallies, the actual number missing should have been about
5,100.
At 4:17 p.m., the number of missing tally sheets mysteriously increased by
25 percent to 7,500. TSE's Matamoros announced "We are missing 7500 actas."
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at a press conference on Sept. 9, 2012.
(State Department photo)
4 - TSE officials gave contradictory results.
While Matamoros was issuing conflicting information about the number of
missing "actas," another election official was saying something very
different. As reported in this Reuters story:
"Election official Marcos Ramiro Lobo told Reuters on Monday afternoon that
Nasralla was leading by a margin of five points, with about 70 percent of
ballots counted. Lobo said Nasralla appeared certain to win, signaling that
experts at the electoral body regarded his lead as irreversible."
The third-place Liberal Party candidate also recognized Nasralla as the
winner and urged the National Party leader to concede defeat.
About noon on Nov. 28, the TSE resumed posting election results after the
36-hour interruption. The new data showed Nasralla's lead steadily declining
and soon the National Party candidate and current President Juan Orlando
Hernandez was edging ahead. The Center for Economic and Policy Research has
analyzed the data and determined the abrupt swing in elections results was
"next to impossible."
Where Things Stand
TSE has announced results showing Juan Orlando Hernandez winning the
election. The Opposition Coalition candidate Nasralla has called for a new
election under international observation and control. The Opposition
Coordinator and former president, Manuel Zelaya, has issued a statement
calling for the investigation and verification of the election procedures
and results.
Honduras is important to U.S. foreign policy and the White House is closely
following events. In mid-November Foreign Policy magazine ran an article
titled The United States has a lot Riding on the Honduras Election" The
article says "losing Hernandez would be a real setback."
Clearly the Honduran people have even more riding on the Honduras election.
The coup of 2009 led to increased crime and violence along with massive
repression of landless campesinos, environmental and indigenous communities.
From the Caribbean Sea to the Pacific Ocean, the domestic policies of
Honduras have been skewed to benefit foreign corporations, plantations, the
local oligarchy and neighbor to the north.
The current situation calls into question the objectivity of the U.S. and
Organization of American States (OAS). Will the U.S. and OAS issue token
criticisms but ultimately rubber stamp this Honduras election despite the
glaring problems? If so, it will highlight the double-standard as the U.S.
and OAS have aggressively criticized Venezuelan elections and refused to
acknowledge the results even after full recounts and verification.
The Honduras election process offers the potential of verification but only
if the data from each and every polling place is compared with the data
recorded at the TSE headquarters. The secret National Party training
described by The Economist specifically called for disruption of the
transmission of unfavorable "actas" (tally sheets) to the headquarters.
If opposition demands for a thorough examination of election procedures and
voting tallies are not met, protests and repression may explode in Honduras.
The majority of the Honduran people evidently want new leadership and voted
for it. It appears that the voters' desires were thwarted through a
manipulated election process and transparent theft.
Rick Sterling is an investigative journalist who was an official election
observer in the 2013 Honduras election. He can be contacted at
rsterling1@xxxxxxxxx .