Enervating slowness

It was not intil ten days after the election that the candidate of the ruling Nationalist party admitted defeat

"Where must i vote?" - Ricardo Fiallos, co-ordinator of electoral observation in Yamaranguila looks for the answer in the TSE data base. Photo: Eva Rasmussen

When in the year 2005 one must choose between the plague and cholera, it is smart to opt for the latter, for which a cure has been found. Thus Honduran voters chose the lesser of two evils, in the opinion of journalist Thelma Mejía, independent MS advisor in Honduras, and elected the liberal candidate Manuel Zelaya.

When the polls closed in Honduras at five o’clock in the afternoon of 27 November, a local radio station declared the liberal Manuel Zelaya the winner. However, it was not until ten days later that the candidate of the ruling Nationalist Party, Porfirio Lobo, admitted defeat. After an electoral campaign characterised by aggressive mud-slinging, fear-mongering and a notable lack of specific proposals, 41% of Hondurans decided to abstain from voting.

The vote count by the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) proceeded with enervating slowness, giving rise to rumours, speculation and even violent clashes among followers of the two large parties. In the town of El Paraíso, for instance, a group of young Nationalists beat a local liberal leader to death. With 30% of the votes counted, the president of the TSE declared Manuel Zelaya the winner. However, his fellow members on the Tribunal rejected his decision, arguing that 30% was not enough bases for such a statement. Indeed, soon later the situation shifted, and Lobo took the lead as votes came in from the capital Tegucigalpa, a Nationalist stronghold. But this swell of votes lasted only about six hours, after which it subsided and by midday of Wednesday 30 November the liberal candidate had weathered the storm, pulling ahead again by some 5,000 votes. At this point the only precincts left to be counted were in those provinces that have traditionally voted for the Liberal party. In the end, Manuel Zelaya won by approximately 3.7% of the vote.

No fraud

Some 7% of all votes cast (120,000) were declared null, often because people placed the “x” on the candidate’s photograph instead of in the circle with the colour of the party. The Nationalist Party insists that the TSE look into this “waste of votes”, arguing that the total is equivalent to twice the difference between the liberal and nationalist candidate. Notwithstanding, both national and international observers are in agreement that while it is true that there were problems, nothing remotely resembling systematic fraud was detected.

“When the voting tables were set up at five in the morning we could see that the members of the local polling stations had no idea of what to do. It is a duty of the TSE to ensure the proper and necessary training so they can do the job, but obviously this was a responsibility they failed to take seriously”, says Ricardo Fiallos, co-ordinator of electoral observation in the province of Intibucá.

Most of the aforementioned mistakes that were described in the Honduran media indicate Fiallos is right. In some cases, the opening and closing voter lists, once signed by members of the polling station, were not deposited in the proper pouches, and in a more serious incident, three ballot boxes were found thrown into in a nearby garbage heap.

Fiallos went on to report that “A common problem we encountered was that voters couldn’t find their names on the registration list at the polling centre where they believed they were supposed to vote. They often had to go vote in a different municipality, sometimes far away. This excluded many voters, given that transportation is both expensive and scarce.”

The Municipal Electoral Tribunals (TEM) are intended to act if there are doubts or problems at the polling stations, but faced serious economic restrictions. “Had a situation emerged where we would have had to go check something at another precinct, we would have had to pay from our own pockets. There was no budget for fuel”, explains Santiago Hernández, member of the TEM in the rural municipality of Yamaranguila.