Ahead of a tight presidential election, Honduras braces for controversy

Incriminating audio. A subject demanding oversight. And a almighty person from abroad, trying to sway voters to the right.

Those are conscionable 3 of the scandals that person made Sunday’s statesmanlike election successful Honduras 1 of the astir intimately watched votes successful the country’s history.

Recommended Stories

• list 1 of 3‘Real uncertainty’: What to cognize astir Honduras’ statesmanlike election
• list 2 of 3Honduras reaches statement to widen extradition pact with the US
• list 3 of 3How an exigency declaration deepened Honduras’s transgression crisis

Already, adjacent earlier the polls person opened, immoderate high-level politicians are alleging that a stolen ballot is nether way.

Outgoing President Xiomara Castro, for instance, has compared the concern to a “criminal conspiracy aimed astatine staging an electoral coup”.

But experts who spoke to Al Jazeera said that the nationalist has grown accustomed to the uncertainty and upheaval.

After all, Honduras’s ideology is lone astir 4 decades old, and during that time, the state has struggled with authorities corruption and adjacent a coup d’etat.

“Obviously, there’s a fearfulness of unit oregon a coup,” said Daniel Valladares, an activistic and past prof astatine the National Autonomous University of Honduras. “But it’s a fearfulness we’ve ever had.”

In the last days earlier the election, Valladares has observed a tense calm grip the Central American country.

“The situation is normal,” helium said. “It’s the aforesaid happening radical ever say: ‘I anticipation determination isn’t a sh** show.’”

The starring statesmanlike candidates see Nasry Asfura of the National Party, Rixi Moncada of the LIBRE party, and Salvador Nasralla of the Liberal Party [Leonel Estrada and Fredy Rodriguez/Reuters]

Unclear canvass results

Part of the uncertainty up of this year’s predetermination stems from the canvass numbers. None of the 5 statesmanlike candidates connected the ballot holds a definitive lead.

There are, however, 3 frontrunners, considered to beryllium cervix and cervix successful the race.

Voters connected Sunday are astir apt to take betwixt Rixi Moncada, the campaigner for Castro’s left-leaning LIBRE Party; Salvador Nasralla of the centre-right Liberal Party; and Nasry “Tito” Asfura of the blimpish National Party.

None of the 3 has definitively pulled ahead, and elector surveys person fluctuated wildly.

For instance, 1 poll conducted by the Instituto de la Justicia recovered Moncada trailing. She had 25 percent support, compared with Asfura’s 31 percent and Nasralla’s 40.

Another poll, meanwhile, showed Moncada successful the lead. More than 44 percent of those surveyed by the Mexican steadfast TResearch backed the left-wing candidate, compared with 19.6 percent for Nasralla and 14.8 percent for Asfura.

Other surveys person shown the 3 candidates successful a virtual tie.

That ambiguity has led to recriminations from the large parties successful the election, with each broadside accusing the different of manipulating the vote.

Asfura, for instance, has accused the governing LIBRE enactment of wielding “pressure” and “abuse” against predetermination officials. He threatened to mobilise his supporters successful protest.

“Yes, we are going to instrumentality to the streets truthful that determination are elections and truthful that determination is ideology and freedom,” helium told the tv web HCH.

Moncada, meanwhile, alleged astatine 1 of her rallies that determination was an “illicit” concern betwixt rival parties to “steal the elections”.

“We volition instrumentality the indispensable measures to support the ballot of each Honduran antheral and woman,” she told the crowd.

Soldiers basal defender adjacent boxes of electoral ballots successful Tegucigalpa, Honduras, connected November 20 [Leonel Estrada/Reuters]

Infighting astatine the predetermination council

The heated rhetoric stems from respective scandals. But 1 of the astir salient erupted successful precocious October.

A authorities assemblage known arsenic the National Electoral Council (CNE) organises the country’s elections. It is composed of 3 officials, selected to correspond the country’s 3 main governmental parties.

But connected October 29, Marlon Ochoa, the LIBRE representative, delivered audio to prosecutors that purported to seizure a speech betwixt his CNE workfellow Cossette Lopez and an unnamed subject official.

In the recording, Lopez, who represents the right-leaning National Party, allegedly discusses plans to sabotage the electoral process by “altering the fashionable vote” and staging a imaginable boycott.

“What I americium definite of is that the subject is connected our side,” Lopez allegedly said.

Attorney General Johel Zelaya has asserted that the signaling is real, and helium has opened an probe into the incident.

But Congressional Deputy Tomas Zambrano, who is besides featured connected the recording, maintained the audio is “totally false, fabricated and manipulated with artificial intelligence”.

He and Asfura person defended Lopez, framing the probe arsenic a run to undermine her authority.

But the audio ungraded was not the lone struggle to shingle the CNE.

Also successful October, the caput of Honduras’s equipped forces, Roosevelt Hernandez, demanded that the subject beryllium allowed to behaviour its ain number of the upcoming predetermination results.

Hernandez is perceived to beryllium allied with LIBRE. Ana Paola Hall, the president of the CNE and a subordinate of the Liberal Party, denounced his request arsenic “interference” successful the predetermination process.

Watchdog groups person echoed those concerns. Human Rights Watch, for instance, issued a connection saying the subject “does not person immoderate authorization to access, count, transmit oregon reappraisal the results”.

Cossette Lopez, a counsellor astatine the National Electoral Council (CNE), has faced scrutiny implicit leaked recordings [Leonel Estrada/Reuters]

Trump weighs in

Adding to the predetermination turmoil is unit from abroad.

Honduras’s largest trading spouse is the United States, and the 2 countries person intimately collaborated connected issues similar combating cause trafficking.

But right-wing leaders successful the US person dispersed mendacious accusation earlier Sunday’s election, stirring further fears astir the integrity of the election.

On Wednesday, US President Donald Trump weighed successful personally connected his Truth Social platform.

He endorsed Asfuro portion falsely describing the blimpish candidate’s 2 closest rivals arsenic puppets of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

A Moncada victory, Trump wrote, would manus the state implicit to “Maduro and his narco-terrorists”. And Nasralla, the US president alleged, is simply a “borderline Communist” who seeks to divided the right-wing vote.

“The Communists are trying to instrumentality the radical by moving a 3rd Candidate, Salvador Nasralla,” Trump wrote. “The radical of Honduras indispensable not beryllium tricked again. The lone existent person of Freedom successful Honduras is Tito Asfura.”

Trump is not unsocial successful turning up the vigor from the US.

Florida Congresswoman María Elvira Salazar, a Republican, has likewise accused Moncada of being successful Maduro’s pocket, saying the LIBRE campaigner would resistance Honduras into a “socialist hell”.

Valladares believes the US unit run is the effect of coordination with Honduras’s close wing.

“The information that they’ve gone truthful acold arsenic to petition that a congresswoman constitute a enactment [about the election] is frightening,” said Valladares.

Honduran statesmanlike campaigner Nasry Asfura has received backing from US President Donald Trump [Leonel Estrada/Reuters]

Ghosts of the past

On Honduras’s left, the unit has reawakened memories of the subject coup that toppled President Castro’s husband, Manuel “Mel” Zelaya.

The shade of the 2009 coup inactive looms ample successful the country. Three years into his term, Zelaya had projected holding a referendum to rewrite Honduras’s constitution.

But the pushback was swift. The Supreme Court issued a concealed warrant for his arrest, and soldiers forced Zelaya into exile, placing him connected an aeroplane to Costa Rica against his will.

Political unit spiked aft the coup, and a bid of contested elections followed, with right-wing governments elected each time.

In an October 29 post, President Castro compared that turmoil to the present-day predetermination proceedings.

“The aforesaid groups that violated the Constitution successful the 2009 coup and perpetrated the electoral frauds of 2013 and 2017 are present attempting erstwhile again to supplant the volition of the people, sow chaos, and hijack fashionable sovereignty,” she wrote.

In an interrogation with Al Jazeera, Illiam Rivera, a biology prof and LIBRE activist, accused concern interests successful the state of attempting to torpedo the left’s chances of re-election.

“There’s a batch of uncertainty,” said Rivera. “The Honduran right, financed by the country’s economical powerfulness groups, has triggered an insane media run against the campaigner of the LIBRE party, Rixi Moncada.”

Another activist, Guido Eguguire, told Al Jazeera that helium feared a repetition of the 2017 predetermination cycle.

“In 2017, determination was a ‘blackout’ successful the voting strategy that hid the results successful real-time,” helium said. “We’re disquieted that determination volition beryllium dynamics similar what volition hap successful 2017.”

Still, Eguguire said, what Honduras is experiencing present is thing new. He described the corruption allegations arsenic an endemic occupation that Sunday’s ballot unsocial would not solve.

“Fraud has been a communal signifier successful the country,” helium said. “Frauds and coups. It’s been portion of our story.”

The Organization of American States, comprised of 33 subordinate countries, has already announced it plans to nonstop 100 predetermination monitors to Honduras for Sunday’s vote.

It called for predetermination officials to transportation retired their enactment “in accordance with the law, escaped from interference and undue unit of immoderate governmental actor”.