Honduras' Electoral Crisis Explained

Honduras has been mired in crisis since the county held the single electoral round to pick the next president almost three weeks ago. The process has been tarnished by allegations of fraud and the Electoral Tribunal is yet to announce a winner. 

Human Rights Watch called for strong indications of election fraud to be properly investigated and for all parties involved to respect the voters' will. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres sent a message to Honduran authorities to uphold the rule of law and respect for human rights. 

At The New York Times, Elizabeth Malkin sets the turmoil in context. The Central American country has gone through this before, she explains, as "eight years ago, a leftist president was ousted by a coup in a fight over what his opponents said was a plan to overturn the constitutional ban on a second presidential term. The resistance movement that sprang up to support him has endured, and the discord that split Honduran society then still defines today’s divisions." 

Incumbent candidate and current President Juan Orlando Hernandez actually overturned the constitutional ban through direct influence in the courts, but this move was ignored by the international community at the time, as the United States actually sees Hernandez as an ally in its drug and security policies in a region fraught with conflict and instability. 

In NACLA, meanwhile, Sanda Cuffe argues the roots of the crisis are deeper. "The nationwide popular uprising against fraud is also an uprising against increasing authoritarianism and unpopular neoliberal policies. In turn, the violent response to the protests has exposed ongoing tensions within the state, in the form of discontent among security forces," she writes. 

Opposition candidate Salvador Nasralla delivered what he said was evidence of fraud to international observers. But there is no end in sight for the current crisis as of yet.