“Our weapon is the vote,” a man named Randolfo tells me. We are standing outside a school called La Vida Abundante in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. It is Sunday, November 29, Election Day and this is one of the polling places.
Outside each class room is a list of all the people who are to vote there.
Inside, representatives of the five political parties check the IDs of voters and give them three ballots, one for the Presidential race, one for the mayoral race and one for the Congressional races ( more complicated because each voter can vote for up to 23 candidates).
The voters then place their completed ballots in one of three ballot boxes or “urnas.” When the polls close, a count is made and then called in to the central voting headquarters on a special cell phone. It turns out that this simple, low tech process is amazingly effective in handling a larger than expected turnout of over 60%.
Unlike Nicaragua’s closed elections of a year ago, Honduras sought outside observers and there were over 3,000 scattered around the country. Some 600 came from at least 31 countries outside of Honduras. Having run for office four times myself and having observed many elections in Colorado as well as Mexico and Nicaragua, I can say that I’ve never seen anything as well organized, transparent and peaceful. As the Washington Senior Observer Group stated, it was ” a free, fair and transparent voting process conducted by committed and conscientious citizens.” Hondurans wanted to show the world that Honduras was committed to fairness and democracy. They also wanted to move on from the confrontation over the removal of former President Manuel ” Mel” Zelaya in late June.
For months, the news about Honduras was dominated by Zelaya’s removal, the insistence of far too many countries ( including the US ) to call this a military coup, and the decision of the interim President Roberto Micheletti and the Honduran Congress to stand up to international pressure and refuse to allow Zelaya back into the country. ( Zelaya did sneak back into the country, thanks to the government of Brazil, and is now stuck in the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa.)
Leading up to the election, there was almost no mention of the two principal candidates – Porfirio “Pepe” Lopez or Elvin Santos, even though they were selected prior to and independently from the process of removing Zelaya.
On election day, however, that all changed. Zelaya was essentially a forgotten man. All people could talk about were the two principal candidates, Pepe and Elvin and this tremendously successful electoral process.
Honduras is a tiny country, half the size of Colorado with an impoverished population of about 7.5 million. When you step out of the Tegucigalpa airport and see the array of American fast food restaurants or go into a store and see all the US products, you realize how heavily it is influenced by us. In this case, however, Hondurans stood up to the Obama administration as well as the governments of an overwhelming number of Latin American and European countries. During my July visit to Honduras, I wondered if Roberto Micheletti’s interim government would eventually give in to international pressure but it didn’t. And now, as many Hondurans said to me, tiny Honduras is the first country to defeat Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez, the man manipulated Zelaya and caused him to go completely off course and violate his country’s laws.
Fortunately the US changed course and has recognized the legitmacy of the election. In the process, there are some lessons to be learned.
1. Our officials in Honduras were completely caught off guard by Zelaya’s removal. If this can happen in a country where we have such a long history, how can we ever expect to understand what is really going on in places like Pakistan, Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan?
2. Our foreign policy should reflect who are our friends and who are our enemies. Why, in this case, were we so quick to take the side of the anti-American Hugo Chávez? And why have we – Democrats especially – been so reluctant to lend a hand to someone like Colombia’s President, Alvaro Uribe who has been such a strong US supporter?
3. Nonetheless, despite much lingering resentment towards the US in Latin America, it was the United States that everyone turned to for a solution. Chávez was totally ineffectual. Can we capitalize on that?
On Monday night, a small caravan of cars and trucks with flags waving and horns blowing surged through Tegucigalpa’s narrow streets. It was the last gasp of La Resistencia, Mel Zelaya’s few remaining supporters. It blocked traffic temporarily and then disappeared. Now Honduras can move on.
Morgan Smith lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. EDITOR’S NOTE: This is an online-only column and has not been edited.
