{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.leahy.senate.gov/press/leahy-statement-on-the-election-in-honduras", "Leahy Statement On The Election In Honduras", "2017-12-04", "2017", "2017-12", "Democrat", "House", "VT", "Patrick Leahy", "L000174", "www.leahy.senate.gov", null, null, "legacy", "12.04.17\n\t\t\t Leahy Statement On The Election In Honduras \n\t\t\t\n\t\t\tThose of us who care about Central America have watched the election for Honduras\u2019 next president with increasing alarm.\u00a0 It has been more than a week since November 26, when the people of Honduras cast their votes.\u00a0 Since then, repeated delays and suspicious behavior \u2013 which suggests either incompetence or fraud \u2013 by the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) that has been tallying the ballots, has incited large public demonstrations.\u00a0\r\nLate last week, the government of President Juan Orlando Hernandez suspended constitutional rights and imposed a ten-day, 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew.\u00a0 Several protesters, including a 19-year-old girl, have reportedly been shot and killed by Honduran troops, and hundreds more have been arrested.\u00a0 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.\r\nEven before the Honduran people went to the polls the prospects for a free, fair and peaceful election faced many challenges.\u00a0 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 limit presidents to a single four-year term.\u00a0\r\nIronically, in 2009 former President Manuel Zelaya was forced from power by a coalition of military officers, business owners, and conservative politicians including Hernandez, after Zelaya sought to extend his own rule by proposing a popular referendum on the issue of presidential re-election.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\r\nZelaya\u2019s 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.\u00a0 During the next three 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.\r\nAfter Hernandez became president of the National Congress, he and his National Party replaced the Supreme Court with justices intended to support their political agenda.\u00a0 And in 2013, Hernandez was declared President of Honduras after an election fraught with reports of vote buying and threats and assassinations of political opponents.\u00a0\r\nTwo years later, the Supreme Court ruled that he could run for a second term \u2013 paving the way for last week\u2019s election.\u00a0 Just eight years after former President Zelaya was pushed out for 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.\u00a0 It was widely predicted that he would coast to victory.\u00a0\r\nBut President Hernandez\u2019 government, in addition to becoming increasingly autocratic, has been dogged by accusations of pervasive corruption.\u00a0\r\nFor 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\u2019 democracy.\u00a0\r\nContrary to past practice, the TSE did not issue early results until the day after the polls closed.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\r\nWhile 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.\r\nThe TSE also said the rural vote count was delayed, and on Wednesday, after a long silence, the TSE indicated that Nasralla\u2019s lead had started to shrink.\u00a0 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.\u00a0\r\nAs time dragged on, suspicions of fraud escalated among Nasralla\u2019s supporters, and last Wednesday afternoon the TSE said its computer system had inexplicably ceased functioning for five hours.\u00a0 Then on Wednesday night the TSE reported that President Hernandez was ahead by several thousand votes, which triggered protests by Nasralla\u2019s supporters, some of them reportedly throwing rocks and lighting fires, who were met by troops firing tear gas and live bullets.\u00a0\r\nAccording 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.\u00a0 But this 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.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\r\nThe 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\u2019s announcement only made a bad situation worse.\u00a0 There is too much suspicion of fraud, and too much distrust.\u00a0\r\nOn Saturday, I asked the U.S. Embassy in Tegucigalpa three simple but important questions about the delays, the TSE\u2019s tally of the votes, and the reports of shootings of protesters.\u00a0 It is Monday night and I have yet to receive answers.\u00a0 This lack of responsiveness by our government in such a time of crisis is troubling, and I hope it is not a new standard.\r\nEarlier this evening, the OAS issued a statement that \u201cthe 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.\u201d\u00a0 There are also reports that\u00a0increasing numbers of Honduran police officers are refusing orders to use force against the protesters.\u00a0\r\nThe importance of this election, which will determine who leads Honduras for the next four years, cannot be overstated.\u00a0 This is especially so because of the way it came about in the first place.\u00a0 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 re-election.\u00a0 As one Honduran was quoted saying, they \u201care reliving the entire crisis from the coup of 2009, and the majority of people don\u2019t really like that because it brings back some ugly memories.\u201d\r\nPresident Hernandez and Mr. Nasralla offer significantly different approaches to tackling the country\u2019s problems.\u00a0 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\u2019 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.\u00a0\r\nIn the meantime, it is the responsibility of the Honduran government \u2013 particularly the police and the military \u2013 to respect and defend the right of the Honduran people to freely and peacefully express their opinions.\r\nHonduras faces a defining moment in its modern history.\u00a0 How the government resolves this crisis will determine the path of the country for the foreseeable future.\u00a0 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.\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t Press Contact \n\t\t\t\tDavid Carle: 202-224-3693", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.leahy.senate.gov/press/leahy-statement-on-the-election-in-honduras"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.620293129235506, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}