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Conservatives Win Honduran Election
TEGUCIGALPA - Conservative Porfirio Lobo has claimed a solid win in the controversial first presidential election in Honduras since a June 28 coup -- and vowed to form a national unity government.
Porfirio "Pepe" Lobo, candidate of Honduras' National Party, gestures after winning in the presidential elections in Tegucigalpa November 29, 2009. Lobo, a wealthy landowner, had over 55 percent support with more than half the votes counted and his closest rival, Elvin Santos of the ruling Liberal Party, then conceded defeat.
(REUTERS/Edgard Garrido) "There's no time for more divisions," a beaming Lobo said late Sunday to crowds cheering his nickname "Pepe," after the polls.
Honduran voters have placed their hopes on the broad-grinned 61-year-old conservative to find an exit to the five-month crisis which isolated the nation after the ouster of President Manuel Zelaya.
Lobo has promised to bring back much-needed foreign investment, and to form a national unity government.
The United States was quick to underline its support on Sunday, with State Department spokesman Ian Kelly calling the elections "a necessary and important step forward."
Peru, Panama and Costa Rica, which mediated first crisis talks, have already said they would support the elections.
Lobo said Sunday that other countries, including France, Poland, Colombia and Japan, had told him they were likely to follow.
But Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela and other elected leftist governments in the region have said they will not recognize the result, alarmed that it is allowing the coup to go unpunished in a region that has fought hard against military rule.
The division puts in danger US President Barack Obama's attempts for a fresh start with Latin America after a painful history of US intervention in the past.
But analysts have suggested that more countries may come around to the US position.
Provided turnout proved to be above 50 percent and there was no evidence of fraud, "my sense is that they'll come around to recognizing the elections," said Kevin Casas-Zamora, a Latin America expert from the Brookings Institution.
Electoral officials said that 61.3 percent of 4.3 million voters had turned out, according to the partial results.
Zelaya, who has been holed up in the Brazilian embassy since returning home in September, had urged Hondurans to boycott the vote.
He accused de facto authorities early Monday of inflating the turnout figures, in comments to Radio Globo.
"We are very surprised how this election has been inflated to turn it into a lie for Hondurans," the deposed president said.
Lobo led with 55.9 percent of the vote, electoral officials said late Sunday, after more than 60 percent of ballots were counted.
Shortly afterwards, his main rival, Elvin Santos, who garnered around 38 percent of votes counted, admitted defeat.
Santos suffered from divisions in his Liberal Party, to which both Zelaya and his rival de facto leader Roberto Micheletti belong.
Election officials and pro-Micheletti media dubbed the vote a "fiesta" and hailed calm voting across the Central American nation after polling closed.
However, security forces in the northern city of San Pedro Sula fired tear gas and water cannon at hundreds of Zelaya supporters at a protest against the polls. Journalists and activists said dozens were detained and injured.
Rights groups complained of an environment of intimidation and fear before the elections, and slammed a military crackdown on dissent, including several deaths and dozens of arrests after the coup.
Scores of independent observers, including right-wing US groups, monitored the vote, after the United Nations and the Organization of American States (OAS) declined to assist.
Zelaya, a wealthy rancher, swung to the left and allied with regional leftist leader Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez after taking office.
Chavez on Sunday denounced the vote as an "electoral farce."
It was as yet unclear who would hand over power to the new president.
The Congress is due to vote on Zelaya's brief reinstatement -- before his term runs out in January -- on Wednesday, when Micheletti has said he will return to the de facto leadership.
"We don't know who the president is at the moment," said 40-year-old shopkeeper Jose Hernan Martinez.
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11 Comments so far
Show AllThe US backed a right-wing "win"? Quelle surprise!
Zelaya and the Frente de Resistencia contra el Golpe de Estado, the umbrella organization opposing the coup, both say voter turnout was 30% to 35%, the lowest in history, thus marking a victory for the resistance, which had advocated a boycott. There was serious repression in the days leading up to the elections: raids, detentions, one reported police murder, one man shot at a police roadblock and now near death. A peaceful march in San Pedro Sula on election day was broken up violently by police, using tear gas, batons and rubber bullets.
Zelaya said today he will not accept reinstatement meant to legitimize the elections.
Yes, they are not conservatives. Conservatives want to conserve. These people, who were appointed by CIA/U.S. government, are right wingers through & through.
All you had to do to find out who would win is to look at the voting posters & signs, professionally made & paid for by U.S. tax dollars.
Look at the news footage of voters. They're all nicely dressed, well off people, not the poor, who would not legitimize the trumped up, U.S. sponsored elections.
What happened to impartial voting experts to say whether the election was "free & fair?"
It's all just more U.S.B.S.
Whoa! What a news flash--right up there with Kim Jong Il winning the election as party chairman and President of N. Korea, or Fidel winning the election to be head of the Cuban government.
(I love Fidel's standing up to US and other multi-national corporate imperialism, and outlasting 10 American Presidents who were their stooges, but face it folks Fidel was a totalitarian dictator politicaly speaking)
Poet
We in the U.S. have 25% of children suffering some form of hunger, last I heard Cuba has not one child suffering hunger.
We have a butcher medical industry that butcher people for a profit, unless you have no insurance then they llet you die to maximize profit.
Last I heard Cuba not only established free healthcare for all in Cuba, but also sent thousands of Doctors and nurses to Venezuela and Honduras, and if Bush had not refused would have fulfilled a promise to send thousands to help with hurricane Katrina.
99% literacy rate, too.
Alabama_john sez:
"We in the U.S. have 25% of children suffering some form of hunger, last I heard Cuba has not one child suffering hunger"
************
Cuban coloric intake is a fraction of that in the US. Curiously enough this fact also has helped to prolong the life expectancy of the Cuban people since many causes of death in the US are due to the degenerative diseases of overeating and under-nutrition in our junk food culture.
Just because there is not wide-spread malnutrition in either Cuba or the US does not mean that many of the peoples of both countries would not dearly love the opprtunity to have more food than they presently are able to obtain.
But getting back to the main thrust of my original comment, the Cuban people have no real choice in electing their governmental leaders unless it is to simply abstain from voting for the one block of candidates that always wins in Cuba since 1959.
Cubanos tolerate this state of affairs for two equally strong reasons: first, they have no real choice in the matter and second, even a totalitarian dictatorship with an independent Cubano leading it is preferable to being ruled by sone American (or Spanish pre-1900)sponsered stooge as was the case before Fidel in Cuba.
Poet
Thus ANOTHER example of how Obama and the Dems are one-in-the-same with the Republicans.
Vote for change...yeah...right.
Nice Joke...#sshole.
Heartfelt condolences to the Honduran people.
"The division puts in danger US President Barack Obama's attempts for a fresh start with Latin America after a painful history of US intervention in the past."
Only in the past? You mean the US didn't install this guy? Really? Sure had me fooled.
FICTION ARTICLE ---- DARKNESS MOST DECIPTFUL
The 61 year old millionaire Lobo will now rule Honduras with the support of only 61.3% of the 1.5 million voters who went to the poles. So only .9 million voted for him out of a total of 4.3 million voters, so he has 80% of voters not supporting him and most hating him. And considering he is of the rich nobility that has owned most all of the land, and most politicians body and soul, since 1821, every desire has he to cause division and prevent democracy.
Comes now this article to give the illusion that Lobo has “a sold win” and has every ability and desire to fulfill his “vow to form a national unity government.” Most reassured are by the article as “There's no time for more divisions."
Over 90% of the Americas has no doubt whatsoever that a CIA military coup dictatorship has taken place in Honduras, as the U.S. has done everything it can to keep it alive, well funded and deadly since July. And surely a stench in the nostrils of all is this smoke screen election that does nothing but commit a second coup d’etat, a great deal more legalized and deadly then the first.
Comes now this fairy tale article to give the illusion that the U.S. is most honorable in its actions, “was quick to underline its support,” and is most correct in its position that the election was "a necessary and important step forward."
Except for Israel, Peru, Panama and Costa Rica, all of Central and South America and all of Europe has proclaimed loud and clear the military coup d’etat in Honduras will not be recognized after the election.
Comes not this fantasy article to fantasize that “other countries, including France, Poland, Colombia and Japan” are more likely then not to recognize this dictatorship election. And that the only nations in the Americas that have refused to recognize the election are leftist, “Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela and other elected leftist governments in the region.”
MORE FICTION: “…President Barack Obama's attempts for a fresh start with Latin America.”
At the most 30% of voters showed up at the polls, yet article says, “turnout proved to be above 50 percent and there was no evidence of fraud… my sense is that they'll (Latin America) come around to recognizing the elections… 61.3 percent of 4.3 million voters had turned out.”
And as to who is the duly elected and Constitutional President, "We don't know who the president is at the moment."