[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 198 (Tuesday, December 5, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7841-S7842]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                HONDURAS

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I want to alert all Senators to the 
situation in Honduras. Those of us who care about Central America have 
watched the election for Honduras's next President with increasing 
alarm. It has been more than a week since November 26, when the people 
of Honduras cast their votes. Since then, repeated delays and 
suspicious behavior, which suggests either incompetence or fraud, by 
the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, TSE, that has been tallying the 
ballots, have incited large public demonstrations.
  Late last week, the government of President Juan Orlando Hernandez 
suspended constitutional rights and imposed a 10-day, 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. 
curfew. Several protesters, including a 19-year-old girl, have 
reportedly been shot and killed by Honduran troops, and hundreds more 
have been arrested. Salvador Nasralla, the main opposition candidate, 
called for a new election and reportedly urged the Honduran police and 
military to disobey orders of their commanders to fire on 
demonstrators.
  Even before the Honduran people went to the polls, the prospects for 
a free, fair, and peaceful election faced many challenges. The most 
obvious point of contention is that President Hernandez is seeking a 
second term, since until recently the Honduran Constitution had been 
interpreted to strictly limit Presidents to a single 4-year term.
  Ironically, in 2009 former President Manuel Zelaya was forced from 
power by a coalition of military officers, businessowners, and 
conservative politicians, including Hernandez, after they accused 
Zelaya of using a popular referendum on a proposed constitutional 
convention to extend his own rule.
  Zelaya's ouster was initially labeled a coup by the U.S. State 
Department, but it was not long before the United States accepted the 
result and resumed sending economic and military aid to the government 
of President Porfirio Lobo. During the next 3 years, the influx of 
illicit drugs and the incidence of violence, including assassinations 
of journalists and other civil society leaders, increased dramatically, 
and Honduras became among the most violent countries in the world.
  After Hernandez became president of the National Congress, he and his 
National Party replaced the Supreme Court with justices intended to 
support their political agenda. In 2013, Hernandez was declared 
President of Honduras after an election fraught with reports of vote 
buying and threats and assassinations of political opponents.
  Two years later, the same Supreme Court ruled that he could run for a 
second term, paving the way for last week's election. Just 8 years 
after former President Zelaya was pushed out for allegedly proposing 
that the Honduran people vote on the question of a second term, 
President Hernandez had consolidated his control by replacing the 
justices of the Supreme Court, appointing the TSE, maintaining a 
majority in the Congress, and using the state media to drown out his 
critics. It was widely predicted that he would coast to victory.
  President Hernandez's government, in addition to becoming 
increasingly autocratic, has been dogged by accusations of pervasive 
corruption.
  For these reasons and because of the opaque and bizarre conduct of 
the TSE during the vote tallying process, it is perhaps not surprising 
that the situation has deteriorated to the point of becoming a national 
crisis of confidence in the integrity of Honduras's democracy.
  Contrary to past practice, the TSE did not issue early results until 
the day after the polls closed. At that time, it announced that, with 
57 percent of the vote counted, Mr. Nasralla, a former TV sports 
journalist, was leading by 5 percentage points. This indicated the 
possibility of an historic upset, and while based on past practice the 
final count was expected the next day, the process of tallying the 
votes dragged on behind closed doors with no further announcements.
  While Nasralla and his supporters celebrated and the third-placed 
candidate, Luis Zelaya of the Liberal party, conceded, President 
Hernandez and his allies in the press insisted that he would come out 
on top once the rural votes were counted.
  The TSE also said the rural vote count was delayed, and on Wednesday, 
after a long silence, the TSE indicated that Nasralla's lead had 
started to shrink, but the press reported that no technical reason was 
apparent to explain the delay as the results from all polling stations 
were reportedly transmitted electronically as soon as the polls closed.
  As time dragged on, suspicions of fraud escalated among Nasralla's 
supporters, and last Wednesday afternoon, the TSE said its computer 
system had inexplicably ceased functioning for 5 hours. Then on 
Wednesday night, the TSE reported that President Hernandez was ahead by 
several thousand votes, which triggered protests by Nasralla's 
supporters, some of them reportedly throwing rocks and lighting fires 
in the streets, who were met by troops firing tear gas and live 
bullets.
  According to press reports, the opposition is questioning ballots 
from 5,300 polling places and has called for a recount of ballots from 
three rural departments. Yesterday morning, after only a partial 
recount, the TSE announced its final tally in favor of President 
Hernandez by just 1.49 percent, a gap of 52,333 votes.
  The process has been so lacking in transparency, so fraught with 
irregularities and inexplicable delays, and coupled with reports of 
excessive force by the Honduran police and military against peaceful 
protesters, it is increasingly obvious that the TSE's announcement made 
a bad situation worse. There is too much suspicion of fraud and too 
much distrust.
  On Saturday, I asked the U.S. Embassy in Tegucigalpa three simple but 
important questions about the delays, the TSE's tally of the votes, and 
the reports of shootings of protesters. It is late Tuesday afternoon, 
and I have yet to receive answers. This lack of responsiveness in such 
a time of crisis is troubling, and I hope it is not a new standard.
  Yesterday evening, the OAS issued a statement that ``the tight margin 
of the results, and the irregularities, errors and systemic problems 
that have surrounded this election do not allow the Mission to hold 
certainty about the results.'' There were also reports that large 
numbers of Honduran police officers, many of whom have longstanding 
grievances, are refusing orders to use force against the protesters. 
Earlier today, I was informed that there may

[[Page S7842]]

be at least 15 fatalities and many people injured from gunshot wounds. 
There are reports that the police and military fired many shots, 
sometimes in the air and other times at the crowds.
  The importance of this election, which will determine who leads 
Honduras for the next 4 years, cannot be overstated. This is especially 
so because of the way it came about in the first place. There was 
already resentment toward President Hernandez for the double standard 
of participating in the coup against Zelaya and then orchestrating his 
own path to reelection. As one Honduran was quoted saying, they ``are 
reliving the entire crisis from the coup of 2009, and the majority of 
people don't really like that because it brings back some ugly 
memories.''
  President Hernandez and Mr. Nasralla offer significantly different 
approaches to tackling the country's problems. Given the debacle of the 
past week and the growing popular outcry, it is apparent that 
establishing the credibility of the electoral process and the integrity 
of Honduras's democracy requires either recounting the contested 
ballots from each of the 5,300 polling places in the presence of 
representatives of the political parties, representatives of civil 
society, and international observers or holding a new election.
  In the meantime, it is the responsibility of the Honduran Government, 
particularly the police and the military, to respect and defend the 
right of the Honduran people to freely and peacefully express their 
opinions.
  Honduras faces a defining moment in its modern history. How the 
government resolves this crisis will determine the path of the country 
for the foreseeable future. It will also determine the extent of 
validity and support the next government receives from the United 
States because only a credible election, accepted widely by the 
Honduran people as free and fair, coupled with a demonstrable 
commitment to transparency, to freedom of expression and association, 
and to the rule of law, will justify that validity and support.

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