Day 4 Update: Honduran Election Crisis

An hour ago, people were being repressed again outside of INFOP, the location of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal's (TSE) warehouse where ballots are being counted in Tegucigalpa. According to a U.S. human rights delegation led by La Voz de los de Abajo, people were just hanging out when the gassing started. Last night, police and military used lots of tear gas to disperse a crowd after an almost armed confrontation between Mel Zelaya and Nasralla's body guards, and the Honduran police.

Around the country, people are protesting and blocking roads. Road blocks have been reported in La Ceiba (Sambo Creek), El Progreso, Tela, two in Colon, and Choluteca to name a few. Apparently one protest was repressed in Agua Blanca, department of Yoro. Social movements and groups around the country are putting out statements calling for an end and stop to Juan Orlando Hernandez's (JOH) attempt to impose his dictatorship (Check out HSN's Facebook for these statements).

Yesterday, Salvador Nasralla said in a press conference that the OAS negotiated a deal between him and JOH saying that they would both wait until all the vote tally sheets (actas) were counted. The agreement was signed around 3 pm yesterday. The OAS's attempts to "negotiate" a way out of this situation is ridiculous and a clear statement about what side they are on. It is reminiscent of the 2009 military coup when the OAS used negotiations between two sides to whitewash the coup and the excessive force and repression against the Honduran people that was occurred at the time of negotiations. The exact same thing is happening now. We have returned to the times of the coup and things are likely to get worse in the next few days. 

Nasralla has since backed out of yesterday's OAS agreement and calls for people to take to the streets to defend the vote, but this means repression and violence. At this point, it appears to be the only choice for Hondurans who once again are betrayed by the "international community" that throw around words like "democracy" "sovereignty" and "fair elections" like that is what is happening here. As excitement and hope that Nasralla won the elections turns into outrage and frustration, people will try and fight back and it won't turn out well for anyone. It's already starting to happen. 

The OAS, along with Canada and the US governments keep calling for Hondurans to wait and respect the vote counting but it's been 4 days! And the wait has only masked the true intentions of the OAS, US/Canadian govt which is permit fraud and manipulation of the election results to favor their candidate, JOH.

Shortly after Nasralla and JOH signed the OAS agreement, the TSE system was either hacked or intervened and it crashed. The Alianza said that altered actas and falsified actas without signatures from all representatives of the Sunday voting tables were being uploaded to the TSE that favor the National Party. This is what happened in 2013. Falsified actas were counted instead of physical and authentic actas and when contested by LIBRE in the Honduran courts after the elections, they were dismissed. 

I know people have been calling their reps, the US and Canadian embassies but we really need to keep it up. The TSE is expected to make an announcement today and it's becoming increasingly suspected that they will announce that JOH won the elections. Please do everything you can to make them pull support to the government.