Nine dejected foot soldiers of a would-be revolution were sitting on the stoop of a local campaign headquarters in the Colonia Kennedy neighborhood on Monday afternoon, drinking soda out of small plastic cups and debating what comes next. The vote count in the Honduran presidential election on Sunday was not going their way. Their new left-wing party, Libre, appeared to be headed for defeat, dashing their hopes for the transformative victory they thought would end the dominance of the country’s tight-knit political and business elite. “The laws they make in Congress only benefit their small groups,” said Hector Núñez, 43, a woodworker and handyman, listening to news of the election on a radio. “That’s why we need to re-found the country.” The totals from the electoral tribunal, with results from about 68 percent of polling places, showed the governing conservative party’s candidate, Juan Orlando Hernández, still leading Libre’s candidate, Xiomara Castro, by about five percentage points.
Libre, however, has rejected the official results as fraudulent. What happens next will hinge on decisions by the party’s leader, the former President Manuel Zelaya, who is Ms. Castro’s husband. It will depend, as well, on how supporters like those in lower-middle-class Colonia Kennedy, who have been loyal to Mr. Zelaya since he was ousted in a coup four years ago, respond to his summons.
“If Xiomara doesn’t call us out onto the streets, we’re going to go anyway,” Mr. Núñez said.
Mr. Zelaya was defiant on Monday at a news conference that was packed with noisy Libre activists — all except for Ms. Castro, who was absent.
Full Article: New Left-Wing Party in Honduras Cries Foul – NYTimes.com.
