Politicians in Honduras have been cementing the Central American country’s reputation for dysfunction. Four and half years ago, the Honduran military — with a nod from Congress and the Supreme Court — staged a coup against leftist President Manuel Zelaya in order to halt his plans for populist constitutional reform. The repercussions of that decision have made a mess of the country’s recent presidential election. Xiomara Castro, a leftist presidential candidate who also happens to be Zelaya’s wife, has so far refused to accept defeat in the Nov. 24 election, despite having apparently received about 28.8 percent of the vote, 8 percentage points fewer than the winner, Juan Hernandez of the conservative National Party. Castro’s rejection of, well, reality began the evening of the election, when she declared herself the victor before the electoral tribunal had announced the official results. Later that night, she tweeted: “With the results I’ve received from nationwide exit polls, I can tell you: I am the President of Honduras.”
The bizarre events continued the next day when, at a rally, Zelaya told supporters to “take to the streets if necessary” to defend his wife’s victory by demanding a recount. Castro was oddly missing from the event; the deposed president’s silence on his wife’s absence prompted rumors that Zelaya had struck her in anger for having declared herself a winner too early. The domestic-abuse chatter apparently prompted Jose Manuel Zelaya, the couple’s son, to try to defend his parents. “In my 24 years of existence never has my father raised a hand against my mother,” he wrote on his Facebook account, according to AmericaEconomia. The whole affair only served to remind Hondurans that Castro’s candidacy may well be Zelaya’s.
Full Article: Election Circus Undermines Honduran Democracy – Bloomberg.