Honduras gears up for elections, rebuffs Zelaya

Less than a week away from the presidential elections scheduled for November 29, the people of Honduras have rejected deposed president Manuel Zelaya’s boycott calls. Instead, they look to the coming elections as the solution to the crisis brought about by Zelaya’s defiance of the Supreme Court’s orders. Since his removal from office last June for violating the country’s constitution, Mr. Zelaya has conducted a campaign to return to power, with the active help of a group of left-wing Latin American rulers, and the acquiescence of a compliant Organization of American States and United Nations General Assembly.
The people of Honduras, however, have shown heroic determination in the face of international pressure. They have resisted the economic sanctions imposed against them and stood firm in defense of their constitution and democratic rights. Shamefully, the international press has contributed to the suffering of the Honduran people by characterizing Zelaya’s Supreme Court sanctioned and National Congress decreed removal as a military coup d’état. While the Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France Press wire services routinely showed pictures of handfuls of Zelaya supporters protesting his removal, they never showed those of much larger – and peaceful – anti-Zelaya demonstrations. Yesterday, as the campaigning period came to a close, all political parties held rallies. The accompanying photographs attest to the massive enthusiasm and support for the electoral process among Hondurans. According to the opinion polls, National Party Candidate, Porfirio Lobo, holds a double digit lead over Liberal Party candidate Elvin Santos.
When the history of this tumultuous year in Honduras politics is written, it will be said that Mel Zelaya made serious miscalculations. He assumed that his election as president constituted a vow of personal loyalty from the electorate that guaranteed public support for any initiative he might undertake. He misread the public mood and thought that his return to Honduras would cause a popular uprising and that he’d ride back to the Presidential House on the shoulders of his supporters. When he couldn’t muster more than a few thousand supporters at the height of his effort, he failed to see the futility of his attempts.
History will also record how a naïve and uninformed American president embarrassed himself by placing his efforts to appease our country’s Latin American left-wing detractors ahead of America’s – and democracy’s’ – interests.
But the most lasting and important lesson to be learned is how a small and poor nation gave the world an admirable example of courage. Pitted against incalculable odds, the people of Honduras remained firm in their defense of their country’s independence and its democratic institutions. They stood alone, but for their steadfast faith in God, and stared down the threats and demands from every powerful country in the world. With patience and dignity, they rebuffed the attacks and found the way to make reason prevail over hubris. Interim president Roberto Micheletti will never win a Nobel Peace Prize but, in the hearts of his countrymen and anyone who truly loves freedom, he deserves it.
(Above right: Mel Zelaya and Roberto Micheletti. Photos courtesy of La Prensa).