Regional Round-Up: Honduras Election Fallout; Mexico - Government Statistics Reveal Slowing Homicides, Skydiver Entangles with Traffic Lights & Tariffs on China

Latin America Correspondent Jon Bonfiglio with a round-up and analysis of stories from the region. 

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Transcript

Well, it was inevitable. Protests have broken out in Tegucigalpa - the capital of Honduras - as election results once again failed to be updated for extended periods of time, alongside the President Xiomara Castro calling for the vote to be annulled, alleging fraud and voter interference - which of course we’ve seen openly take place on the part of the US administration, but which also can be extended to interventions by organized crime in some areas, coercing voter turnout on behalf of The National Party’s Nasry ‘Tito’ Asfura, Trump’s favoured candidate. 

Additionally, Marlon Ochoa, a representative for the Libre Party on the three-member National Electoral Council (CNE), alleged coordinated and deliberate electoral fraud carried out by the other council members, Cossette Alejandra López-Osorio of the National Party and Ana Paola Hall of the Liberal Party. 

The CNE had claimed that the delays in election results were due to technical issues. Two members of the council criticized the company with the contract for running the election for carrying out software modifications without the unanimous authorization of the council plenary. 

Additionally, the Honduran Center for Democracy Studies has called for the electoral authority to act. 

Internationally, the Organization of American States - which had observed the election - called for speeding up the count, maximizing transparency and a rejection of calls for protests which might “compromise the remaining ‍stages of the electoral process.”

We’re now nearly two weeks on from election day, with little clarity on the outcome. 

Currently, Asfura is seemingly in the lead from Salvador Nasralla, by 40,000 votes, with more than 99% of the ballots counted, although 15% of the tally sheets showed inconsistencies ‍and are to be reviewed once again.

Interestingly, the ruling LIBRE party of Xiomara Castro and her husband Manuel Zelaya - deposed in the coup of 2009 - have responded in two ways. On the one hand, they have called for protests, which have drawn hundreds, as well as calling for a re-do of the elections, whilst at the same time Manuel Zelaya - in recognition of LIBRE’s overwhelming loss, achieving only 20% of the vote, threw his support behind Nasralla, saying that based on his party’s “own national count ‍of presidential tally sheets, sheet by sheet, the winner of the presidency is Salvador Nasralla.”

For his part, Salvador Nasralla - who was likely defrauded from an election victory in 2017 by Juan Orlando Hernandez - has also denounced the count and said he has won the election.

The tally sheets due to be reviewed contain hundreds of thousands of votes, and with Asfura in the lead by less than 1% from Salvador Nasralla, the lead could easily change hands once again. 

It’s been a hugely tense period in Honduras, which has a history of contested, opaque election processes, which have on more than one occasion led to national protests and killings. 

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In Mexico, the government of Claudia Sheinbaum has released figures that show that killings are down year-on-year. Sheinbaum says that the country’s murder rate has come down by 32% but - as ever - what’s behind the statistic is more telling. 

The most obvious thing to say is that statistics for murders require a body, and so the figures are imperfect, given Mexico’s huge problem with disappearances, where a body is never found and also often - given the fear of repercussions many families feel if they were to report disappearances - the undoubtedly significant number of instances where a missing loved one is never reported at all.

Additionally, analysis by The Economist suggests that although the rate has fallen, it has actually reduced by the much smaller margin of 14% and other statistics suggest that when you take into account a more rounded picture of all figures (even if imperfect), the rate has actually reduced nearer to 6%. 

The final thing I would add is a pretty crucial question, which is to ask why? If numbers are down, does that mean a reduced presence of organized crime groups in the country? Far from it. What it points to is the continuing supremacy of one particular group, which in and of itself is linked to the ruling party.

I recently spent some time with a priest involved in what are considered peace dialogues to reduce violence in Mexico, and a number of things came up in conversation. The first thing is that many priests are afraid to get involved or to speak out about the violence. Historically, priests and places of worship were no-go areas for the cartels and their officers, but that all started to change last year in the war between the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and the Sinaloa Cartel. Killings started to happen in churches, and a number of priests were killed. The priest I was talking to was saying that recruitment of young men in rural areas is now common in places where historically there was never any presence of crime groups, and figures suggest that this recruitment has increased four-fold in the last 2 years. 

So if numbers are down, it hardly feels like a significant victory. It’s a hugely complex problem, and one which is not going away anytime soon.

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On a lighter note I think - and still in Mexico, a skydiver has crashed into traffic lights in Mexico City. He was filmed trying to land on a road in the city, at night, but had his parachute caught in a traffic light, where it remained stuck. Passers-by and the skydiver tried to release the parachute but it remained stuck on the lights, all caught on cctv cameras. The man was arrested but eventually a civic judge ruled that he had not damaged city infrastructure and was free to go. 

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And finally, we’ve recently spoken a lot about Trump’s motivation on regional control, and by definition its removal of Chinese influence from the region. Well, as a result of this Mexico’s Congress has approved tariff increases on more than 1,400 products imported from China and other countries that do not have free trade agreements with Mexico.

Sheinbaum’s argument is that the tariffs are necessary to protect Mexican industries - a quasi Trump argument - but of course the real motivation is to curry favour with the US and to continue to avoid punitive tariffs of its own with its neighbour to the north. The US argument - with justification - is that China was using Mexico as a bridging point to US markets, siting companies in the country in order to include them within the umbrella of the US/Mexico/Canada free-trade agreement and thus make it easier - and cheaper - to export into the US. 

Mexico has not taken a political position on this, but clearly - with these economic measures - it continues to straddle a fine line between the devil and the deep blue sea.