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SPECIAL REPORTS |
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HONDURAS:
President-Elect Promises Unity Government
By Thelma Mejía
TEGUCIGALPA (IPS) - Porfirio Lobo, the
presidential candidate of the right-wing
National Party, won the elections Sunday in
Honduras that were backed by the de facto
government in power since the Jun. 28 coup
that overthrew President Manuel Zelaya.
According to the preliminary results posted
by the Supreme Electoral Court, Lobo took 56
percent of the vote, compared to 38 percent
for his closest rival, Elvín Santos of the
governing centre-right Liberal Party.
Honduran politics have been dominated by the
National and Liberal parties for the past
century.
A number of Latin American countries,
including Brazil, Argentina and Venezuela,
stated ahead of the elections that they
would not recognise the results, as no
agreement was reached in talks between
Zelaya and the de facto regime of Roberto
Micheletti, to overcome the political
crisis.
But right-wing Colombian President Álvaro
Uribe congratulated Lobo on his triumph, and
Panama and Peru also indicated that they
would accept the vote.
Washington praised the elections, which
despite the continued tension over the
political crisis took place in relative
calm, with the presence of around 300
international observers and more than 350
foreign correspondents. But the Barack Obama
administration called again for continued
negotiations, in order to set up a unity
government until the president-elect is
sworn in on Jan. 27.
After his victory was announced, Lobo
promised to hold talks with the aim of
establishing a coalition government.
Voting was calm Sunday. However, the police
cracked down harshly on a protest held by
supporters of Zelaya in the northern city of
San Pedro Sula, and dozens of people were
injured and around 30 arrested, according to
the National Resistance Front Against the
Coup d'Etat and the Committee of
Detained-Disappeared in Honduras.
On Wednesday, Congress is to vote on whether
or not Zelaya - who has been holed up in the
Brazilian embassy since sneaking back into
the country in late September - should be
returned to office to serve out the last few
weeks of his term.
The president of the Supreme Electoral Court
(TSE), Saúl Escobar, said the voter turnout
of over 61 percent was "one of the highest
rates in the last decade."
He also said the TSE is open to national or
international scrutiny, "if anyone has any
doubts about the elections, which have been
marked by transparency and by the triumph of
democracy in Honduras."
Conceding defeat, Santos said "we are at the
doors of a new stage for the country, and we
must put the nation's interests before our
own personal interests." He urged his
party's supporters to join "this democratic
fiesta that Honduras is experiencing,
because today democracy has won, and our
party will be the object of reforms."
Santos heads the party that put Zelaya, a
timber tycoon, in the presidency, but which
turned on him when he made a shift to the
left and attempted to usher in mild reforms
like a raise in the minimum wage.
Lobo, a conservative rancher who like Zelaya
is from the northeastern province of
Olancho, said "I want to look towards the
future, not get caught up in quarrels from
the past."
The president-elect told IPS that the talks
would require a "governance pact," and added
that Zelaya himself "will be included, and,
if I have to knock on the doors of the
international community and donors to get
them to recognise this legitimate and
massive triumph by my people, have no doubts
that I will do so."
He said several governments had already
called to congratulate him and announce that
they would recognise his victory and the
elections, "because no one can deny that
they were legitimate and transparent, and
that turnout was high.
"I want to tell you that I am seeking unity
for my people, and I want to tell the people
who make up the so-called resistance (to the
coup) that we are all Hondurans, and that
above and beyond our ideological
differences, I invite them to engage in a
process of reconciliation of the Honduran
family," said Lobo.
The president-elect once had leftist
leanings, studying for six months in the
Soviet Union in the 1980s. He was also
involved in social movements, as the founder
of the first non-governmental human rights
body, along with current ombudsman Ramón
Custodio.
His past gave rise to some wariness in the
most conservative faction of the National
Party, the country's most right-wing party.
But a smiling Lobo told IPS that "those
prejudices have disappeared, because we are
a humanistic centrist party that seeks to
strengthen its participation in favour of
all Hondurans." |
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