An anti-democratic drama is being played out in Honduras, as the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) just announced late afternoon yesterday a victory in the polls for President Juan Orlando Hernandez, who will now be allowed to serve an un-Constitutional second term. He has already concentrated power in his own hands such that he controls Congress, the Supreme Court, and has closed media outlets critical of his administration.

Click here to sign onto an action alert from Witness for Peace calling for the U.S. to suspend security aid until the TSE agrees to an open and transparent count of the votes and an impartial investigation of allegations of fraud.

The behavior of the TSE has been highly irregular since election day last Sunday. The members of the TSE waited almost 10 hours to make any announcements about the vote count after the polls closed, then making public at 1:40am that with more than half the votes counted, opposition candidate Salvador Nasralla was leading by 5%. At that point, TSE judge Marco Ramiro Lobo pronounced that statistically, the vote count in favor of Nasralla had an “irreversible tendency.”  In the 2013 elections, with this proportion of the votes counted, the TSE declared Juan Orlando Hernandez the victor, but this time, the TSE went silent for a day and a half while tensions and suspicions mounted in the public that the members were scheming about how to increase the vote totals for Hernandez. An observation mission from the European Union issued a statement critical of this behavior and urging the TSE to keep frequent, open and transparent communications with the public. They also criticized the lack of press time and space given to opposition candidates before the election and the vastly greater amounts of money spent and press time given to Hernandez. In the 2013 elections, it came out later that his party, the National Party, had stolen hundreds of millions of dollars from the country’s health system to fund Hernandez’ campaign and buy votes.

Starting mid-day Tuesday, the TSE made regular announcements about new vote totals coming in from the countryside which were overwhelmingly in favor of Hernandez. Videos of National Party members stamping ballots for Hernandez, allegations of vote buying by the National Party, and photos of police and military intimidation in various parts of the country were flying around on social media. Then late Wednesday afternoon, the TSE pronounced Hernandez the winner by 22,000 votes. Nasralla has refused to accept the results, saying that the election was stolen. The U.S. has said that it will work with whoever wins, but calls to the Embassy by CRLN questioning the integrity of the electoral process before theTSE declared a victor were answered firmly that the Embassy considered the elections free and fair and that we should just wait for the results.

Nasralla’s party (a coalition party of Libre and PINU, the Alliance Against the Dictatorship) wisely has kept copies of the vote tallies at each precinct. Given the strange behavior of the TSE and the amount of social unrest, an independent and transparent vote recount is in order.

Click here to sign onto an action alert from Witness for Peace calling for the U.S. to suspend security aid until the TSE agrees to an open and transparent count of the votes and an impartial investigation of allegations of fraud.

To read more about the Honduran election, see links below. For statements from Honduran civil society organizations, see attached documents.

NYT:

“Political Unrest Grips Honduras After Disputed Election.”

We need your help! Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) has just circulated a sign-on “Dear Colleague” letter in the U.S. House of Representatives to President Trump, urging him to join the Organization of American States in calling for new elections, and to immediately suspend all security assistance to Honduras. The letter highlights the violent repression of protests since the election, and urges the President “to make clear to the Honduran government that these abuses must cease immediately.” The letter states,

“We continue to have concerns over the candidacy of Juan Orlando Hernandez, as the current president’s campaign for reelection violates the Honduran constitution’s explicit ban on re-election. This blatant violation of Honduran law continues to be an issue of concern, in addition to the lack of integrity in the elections…We believe that the Honduran people have a right to peaceful protests, and are alarmed at the actions of Honduran security forces.”

We need your help in securing the signature of your Member of the U.S. House of Representatives on this letter.  Only members of the House can sign the letter.  The deadline for signatures is today, Wednesday, December 20th, at 5pm.

——–

To sign on to the letter (or if the staffer wishes an official copy of the letter), your Rep’s staffer can contact Zach Freed (Zach.Freed@mail.house.gov)

NOTE: Please do not contact Ellison’s staff yourself, but ask the staffer to do so.

Call the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121, give them the name of your Rep, then ask to be connected.

When you call, ask to speak with the aide who handles foreign policy.

Use the script below in speaking with the aide. If the foreign policy aide is not available, ask to leave a message on his or her voice mail.  Be sure to get the name of the foreign policy staffer so you can follow up.

Script:
“My name is _____.  I am a constituent from (your town/city) in (your state).  I am calling to ask Representative _____ to sign the Ellison sign on letter calling for new elections in Honduras and renewing the call to suspend all security aid to Honduras.

The deadline for sign ons is today. Has Representative _______ seen this letter?  Can I count on him/her to sign on?  Please call me this week at (_your phone number_) to let me know if you have seen the letter, and if Representative _____ will sign it.”

**In your phone conversation, please highlight why this letter is important to you, especially if you have travelled to Honduras or heard a Honduran leader speak in your community.

PROMPT FOLLOW-UP:

It’s useful to follow up with an email to the aide, and you can use the action alert above. You can ask whoever answers the phone for the email for the foreign policy staffer and/or use this formula if you know how to spell their name correctly (the person who first answer the phone can spell it for you):

Firstname.Lastname@mail.house.gov, e.g.
Jane.Doe@mail.house.gov

In an email, you can just ask them to sign the letter, and then if you like send some information.

Here are a few links to share with your Reps:

1.

U.S. at a Crossroad as It Confronts Turmoil in Honduras
in the New York Times

2.

In Honduras, Calls Rise for new Presidential Elections
in the New Yorker

3.

America’s Blind Eye to Honduras’s Tyrant
in the New York Times

4.

The US Should Back New Elections in Honduras
in Bloomberg