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| The scene in Tegucigalpa after the 2009 coup |
Politics are politics all over the world,
and the strutting and throwing around of money in the runup to the election has
been familiar. Canadian parties might not drive hooting and hollering supporters
around in the backs of honking trucks playing the party song at top volume, but
the pageantry is similar.
But unlike Canada, Honduras has a recent
history of playing a little rough in its elections. People have advised us to
stay home Monday, the day after the election, just in case things get intense. Cuso
International has in fact ordered all of us to stay home, and even the Honduran
organization I work for is closing its doors for the day. Cuso has talked about
flying us back to Canada out of Guatemala City if the post-election scene really
gets wild.
I’m having a hard time imagining my Copaneco
neighbours getting wild, but I guess we’ll see. I found myself buying an extra
jar of peanut butter at the grocery store today and stocking up on dog food
just in case.
Honduras is a democracy, but my sense of
the place is they haven’t really got the hang of that system just yet. In 2009,
the government of Mel Zelaya was overthrown in a military coup, something fairly
untypical for a democratic country. The current president was elected
democratically the following year, but the wounds from the coup are still
pretty raw.
Zelaya’s wife is running in this election
under the banner of a new party, Libre, which has added an interesting
undercurrent. Certainly things are zizzy in quiet Copan at this very moment,
with many trucks decorated in party colours making their way around town in a
hunt for treats to transport to the villages tomorrow to lure voters. (One of
my friends in the Moskitia says her Garifuna community loves election years,
because the politicians are always coming around with free meat.)
I wish I could feel excited about the
changes a new government might bring. But I don’t see a lot of hope of that.
The polls are calling 50-50 between the Nationals and Libre, and I don’t think
either outcome would give Honduras the dynamic, committed government that it so
desperately needs. There’s a former sports journalist who I’m rooting for, running
on an anti-corruption platform, but the election will almost certainly go
either to the conservatives or the slightly-less conservatives, as seems to be
the way of the democratic world right now.
At any rate, this is a country that is still
very much governed by wealthy families with long histories here. My sense is
that they will get what they want. I just wish they wanted competent government,
because you sure don’t see nearly enough of that down here.
One of the country’s crazier political
policies is a prohibition preventing presidents from serving more than one
four-year term. It’s intended to prevent the buildup of power that can lead to a
dictatorship, but how it manifests is as a disruptive and destabilizing force
that condemns the poor country to spin its wheels ever more.
While most governments of the world are
self-serving these days, the lack of voter accountability that results from a
single four-year term has created a monster in Honduras. Government takes no
responsibility for addressing the country’s staggering problems, none of which
are going to go away in a four-year term. I see more hope at the municipal
level, but politicians at that level have neither the power nor the money to do
much.
But hey, nothing would make me happier than
to be wrong about all of this. Maybe the very nice people of Honduras are
finally going to get a government that takes its responsibilities seriously. Maybe
you really can work miracles in a mere four years. Maybe even hungry people get
to thinking sooner or later that one day of free meat is a lousy trade for 1,459
days of neglectful, uninterested governance.
Go, Honduras. You deserve so much better.
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