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November 30, 2009

Obama, Chavez, and Castro lose in Honduras election - Honduras wins

Topics: Political News and commentaries

The winner of the election in Honduras - a conservative rancher named Porfirio "Pepe" Lobo; the losers - socialists Barack Obama, who previously supported the want-a-be socialist dictator Manuel Zelaya, and Hugo Chavez who continues to support him:

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras -- A conservative rancher named Porfirio "Pepe" Lobo took the Honduran presidency in elections Sunday, five months after the country's last elected president was forced out of the country at gunpoint. Now Hondurans must wait to see if the international community, which has been divided over the crisis, accepts the winner as legitimate.

The results gave Mr. Lobo 56% of the vote, well ahead of Liberal Party candidate Elvin Santos at 38%, confirming voters' expected punishment of the Liberals -- party of both the deposed president and the interim government that ousted him.

While the small Central American nation is expected to get crucial support from the U.S., it will likely continue to face opposition from regional heavyweights such as Brazil and Argentina. The U.S., in agreeing to accept the winner, is now in a delicate position -- with Brazil, for example, which is housing exiled leader Manuel Zelaya in its Honduran embassy and recognizes him as president.

About 61% of Hondurans voted, and turnout, which was up from 2005, was seen as a crucial factor in persuading more countries to back the vote. The turnout was a loss for Mr. Zelaya, who had urged supporters to boycott the election. After the vote, Mr. Zelaya condemned the elections on CNN saying: "Absenteeism triumphed. ... These elections don't correct the coup d'etat."

Mr. Zelaya's removal at gunpoint in June caused a stir in Honduras and abroad, where the global community condemned the ouster as a coup. Honduras's political institutions, including its congress and supreme court, backed the ouster as the legal removal of a president who they said was illegally trying to get himself re-elected -- charges Mr. Zelaya denies.

Although Barack Obama had previously insisted that Zelaya be reinstated, he has since agreed to support the winner of this election:

[...] Only the U.S., Costa Rica and Panama have said they will accept the winner, though other countries, including Mexico and Canada, appear to be leaning that way as well. The government is betting that U.S. recognition will lead other nations to back down from earlier positions. "They may not recognize the elections Sunday itself, but I believe they will at some point in the future," Mr. Lobo said Saturday.

As Jay Ambrose noted at the Washington Times back when Obama was insisting Zelaya be reinstated, you can understand someone like the egomaniacal Marxist Hugo Chavez who is in the oppressive process of destroying rights, legal traditions and the Venezuelan middle class, pleading the case of Zelaya. After all, Chavez is in the process of making the poor poorer in the name of anti-capitalist equality, and he would like company. But how in the world can the Obama administration call for Mr. Zelaya's reinstatement while cutting off military aid and talking self-contradictorily about "restoring democratic order"?

[...] The expression of some concerns about process and, recently, of the Honduran government's censoring a media outlet run by a Zelaya friend would be understandable, along with urgings of peaceful courtroom proceedings. Surely, though, the administration would be more discerning than some governments about what is really going on -- we have always had a special interest in nearby Latin America -- and knows the mere fact of election is not democratic order.

Would it want to argue that "democratic order" would have been served by President Nixon's staying in office after his second-term landslide victory, no matter what?

One proffered explanation is that the administration is reflexively compensating for America's strategic backing of coups against any Latin American governments that might align themselves with the Soviets during the Cold War, but what hope is there for our officials if they cannot distinguish between now and then? It has been suggested, too, that there was an initial misreading of what had happened -- that this was like all those Latin American overthrows in the bad old days. But has the administration really been that thoughtless about something that matters so much?

Here's a fear - that this administration has deep, abiding sympathy for socialist solutions both in the United States and elsewhere and thinks Mr. Zelaya could be just what Honduras needs. Maybe that is a nutty conclusion and absolutely wrong. I hope so, and I hope the administration proves it wrong by changing its stance.

As America is fast-learning, Barack Obama does indeed have those "deep, abiding sympathy for socialist solutions" the Ambrose refers to, and one can only hope that Americans wake up and fight back in 2010 and 2012 - just as the people of Honduras have done in this election of a conservative.

H/t - Ace

Related: Birds of a Feather": Obama, Zelaya, Castro & Chavez

Posted by Abdul at November 30, 2009 10:44 AM

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