Honduras: The Orchid Revolution

HONDURAS

The Orchid Revolution

Could unrest in Honduras spark a political revolution like the Arab Spring?

That’s the question that the Los Angeles Times asked in a recent op-ed.

Even though incumbent President Juan Orlando Hernandez was declared the winner this week, Honduras remains in a political crisis that began with the Nov. 26 election. The opposition candidate, Salvador Nasralla, was running ahead by 5 percent with nearly 60 percent of the votes counted when election officials suddenly went quiet.

A day later, computers tallying votes updated themselves to show that Hernandez had won by a margin of 1.6 percentage points.

Given that the Honduran constitution bars presidents running for reelection – supreme court justices whom Hernandez appointed determined the rules didn’t apply to him – people were upset.

Protesters took the streets. Some police officers refused to arrest them. Hernandez declared a state of emergency, imposed a curfew and loosed the army to restore order. The soldiers killed a handful of demonstrators. But the protests continue.

Nasralla supporters have put orchids, the country’s national flower, into the barrels of the guns of soldiers dispatched to keep order.

Angry Hondurans weren’t alone in their concerns. As the BBC reported, the Organization of American States said the vote was “marred by irregularities.” European Union observers also said the process was tainted.

The US has respected the ruling of election officials. Critics, including Bloomberg editorial writers, thought that was a mistake.

The New York Times explained that much of the contretemps stems from 2009, when the military ousted leftist President Manuel Zelaya on suspicions he wanted a second term. Zelaya ran for president again in 2013 and lost to Hernandez.

Zelaya’s supporters still hold a grudge. But Hernandez is probably not the victim here. He’s an autocrat with a terrible human rights record.

The murder rate in the country is the highest in the world. Dissidents, journalists, the LGBT community and others face terrible persecution. Honduras garners few headlines. But the murder last year of Berta Cáceres, an environmentalist and indigenous rights leader, thrust the oppressive climate in the country into the spotlight.

Valiant human rights campaigners hope to capitalize on the tumult during the recount. The people must rise up and demand the government they deserve, they said.

“This crisis has to be seen as an opportunity for growth,” Carlos Hernández Martinez of Transparency International told the Christian Science Monitor.

Sounds like an invitation for some creative destruction.