Once again, we welcome Gregory Weeks with post-election analysis of the Honduran presidential elections; for more, see his blog Two-Weeks Notice: A Latin American Politics Blog.
Although the final numbers have not yet been released, National Party candidate Porfirio “Pepe” Lobo has been reported as winning the Honduran presidential election by a large margin. He won 57.74%, while the Liberal Party candidate Elvin Santos garnered 32.94%. (See here for my election preview.)
That result is no surprise, as Lobo had been leading for months. More in doubt was turnout, since Mel Zelaya’s supporters had called for a boycott. But the Supreme Electoral Tribunal has projected 61% turnout, a sharp increase over the 2005 presidential election, which was 45%. Voting is obligatory in Honduras, so some voters may have cast an invalid ballot to protest while not violating the law, but there are no initial numbers in that regard.
By the day of the election, only five countries (the United States, Israel, Panama, Costa Rica, and Peru) had indicated they would recognize the results. One of Lobo’s immediate challenges is to convince wavering governments that the turnout should be viewed as a sign of legitimacy.
Over the longer term, the events following the June 28 coup bring to mind Alfred Stepan’s classic work The Military in Politics: Changing Patterns in Brazil (1971), where he discussed the “moderator” role of the armed forces. Rather than assuming control over the country, the military ousted leaders and installed others, acting as the arbiter of national politics. So when military leaders in other countries ask themselves, “to coup or not to coup,” they may well keep the “success” of the Honduran case in mind.
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Too early to say whether the Honduras coup was a success or not. We still have to wait and see…
It’s a shame that Obama recognized this election. For someone who claimed that would change the way US acted in the international stage, Obama’s government is looking surpringly similar to the previous US governments. Indeed, Obama’s government has just given Latin Americans evidence enough that US will continue to support the continent’s elites and their coups (as they have done during the last 50 years). It’s really a shame…
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