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My Fletcher classmate and fellow CRS Fellow Marc recently wrote a post about politics in Bosnia.  So with a little inspiration I thought I would give a glimpse of the political landscape here in Honduras or at least the little bit that I understand.  Rather than try for a comprehensive post which is beyond my current understanding I’ll offer three snapshots that hint at what the political life is like here.

1.  Who gets to run in the primaries?  Honduras is scheduled to hold elections in November 2009, but as in any good democracy campaigning began months ago.  The primary elections to select the candidates from the major parties are set for November 2008 and we’re just now finding out who the primary candidates will be.  The election authorities handed down a ruling two weeks ago that the current Vice-President (Elvin Santos) is ineligible to run.  Apparently the constitution says that sitting Vice-Presidents are ineligible.  Seems pretty straightforward except that it apparently also says that the president of congress also is ineligible.  Except the election authorities have said he was ok to run.  Turns out the constitution isn’t quite so straightforward and there’s lot of ambiguity in the language.  Ambiguity isn’t generally a good thing in situations like this and the rulings have brought street protests from Elvin’s supporters.      

2.  ALBA.  ALBA is the Bolivaran Alternative for the Americas, Hugo Chavez’s coalition to fight the hegemony of the United States.  Chavez is the president of Venezuela and has a penchant for calling the U.S. los yanquis de mierda (”the yankees of shit”).  The same day that brought Elvin’s supporters to the streets Chavez was in town for Honduran President Mel Zelaya to sign Honduras onto ALBA.  The papers have been filled with the pros and cons of joining ALBA.  It comes with some big promises of help from Venezuela’s oil riches, but also some significant risk of offending the U.S. from which Honduras gains significant aid and remittances from the 1 million Hondurans living in the U.S.  The Honduran congress has vowed not to ratify ALBA but the debate rages on.  The signing brought out major street protests both for and against ALBA though word is that Mel was paying bussing in “supporters” and paying them $25 and a free lunch to participate in the pro-ALBA rallies (I almost went just to score $25).  I’m still fuzzy on the details of what ALBA actually is but there’s always the Wikipedia article.  

3.  We’ll be right with you Mr. Ambassador.  One piece of fall-out from the ALBA signing happened last Friday when President Mel decided not to accept the credentials of the new American ambassador to Honduras.  This is one of those diplomatic things that actually has little to do with Honduras but Mel dragged them into it.  Bolivia is experiences some serious turmoil right now with violent demonstrations and fighting in the streets.  Somehow in all of this mess Bolivia decided one way to control the situation was to expel the American ambassador.  This set off a chain reaction with Venezuela showing it’s solidarity and taking advantage of any possible excuse to thumb their noses at Washington to expel the ambassador to Venezuela.  Washington then replied in kind by expelling Venezuela and Bolivia’s ambassadors to the U.S.  In the midst of this last week the newly appointed U.S. ambassador to Honduras was arriving and Mel decided to indefinitely postpone accepting his credentials.  In reality this has no effect.  It’s not like the new ambassador isn’t going to work because they haven’t had the ceremony.  Mel has already backtracked and promised teh ceremony will be held within the week.

So those are just a few snapshots that offer a bit of insight into Honduran political life.  Makes the Obama-Hillary primary seem almost sane.