00:00Hello, welcome to From the South. I'm Luis Alberto Matos from the headquarters in Havana, Cuba.
00:14As we know, Hondurans will go to the polls on Sunday, number 30th, to elect their next president and government.
00:20We'll have more information coming from Honduras itself with a special envoy, Jorge Hostoso, who has the latest details as we are close to the voting day.
00:30Thank you. We are here at Tegucigalpa in our studios that we are ready to start that reporting from tomorrow's presidential elections here in Honduras.
00:54And in order to put in perspective what to expect in that historic day, we have the presence, the privilege to have with us, Russell Garay.
01:06He is the director of strategy of Ritzi Moncada presidential campaign.
01:13Ritzi Moncada is the representative of the official party Libri. Russell, thanks very much for joining us.
01:20Thank you for having me. Russell, at midday, the candidate Ritzi Moncada was doing a press conference. Your reaction to what she said?
01:32Yeah, basically she made this denounce of how the oligarchs have been left without candidates. So now they are seeking the pardon of the former president, Juan Orlando Hernandez, to fill this gap.
01:46And we believe that this is quite an insult to the country that the Trump administration has been claiming that they are going to pardon Juan Orlando Hernandez, even when he was convicted for 45 years of jail for trafficking at least 400 tons of cocaine to the U.S.
02:10So at this point, we are in a point of a strong contradiction in the country. But we believe that as the same as it happened in 2021, when we had the most voted election in history and everyone voted against Juan Orlando Hernandez, we will have the same effect in this election.
02:34And we are we have faith that tomorrow the polls are going to go for us and we are going to be declared winners in Sunday.
02:45The polls open tomorrow around six in the morning or seven in the morning and supposedly they are closing around five. But if it's people doing the waiting things, they're going to let them the chance to finish the vote everybody.
03:03What about participation? Because the vote is not mandatory. What do you anticipate that could be or what indication you have about the participation?
03:15Well, it's not mandatory, but we normally have a culture of democracy and at least 60% of the people who are able to vote vote. In 2021, we have a tournament around 67% of the people.
03:31And now we believe that it's going to be less, mostly because there is a lot of insurance and lack of trust in the institutions. And we believe that that maybe can leave some people without the desire to vote. But we still are working and we are moving all our political organization to ensure that all the people who are able can go to the polls.
03:59What do you have identified as the position of the young voters? Are they ready to participate in the political life or like in another countries, they are pretty much reluctant to go and vote when there is no mandatory?
04:15Well, normally they will obtain voting. But in this particular issue, since we have the former president of Honduras who was convicted as a truck dealer and he was in power until 2020.
04:33So there is a lot of people who are young at this point, but they still remember what happened during his tenure and he was convicted for corrupting the institutions. He had ties to the army. He seek to empower drug dealers all over the country. He also has a lot of corruption scandals regarding the health of the country.
05:01And the insurance of the people, the health care. So there is a lot of young people that don't know all the history of Honduras, but they are still are able to recall all that happened in the former government. And we hope that they are going to vote. We have a strong polls indicating that young people favor us and we believe that they are going to vote tomorrow.
05:58And one of the preliminary results that I do accept is the results of the people of Honduras and their vote. That's the only thing. Why do you think that is going to be that type of reaction? Is that what do you think is going to happen?
06:15Yeah, we are completely sure that the preliminary results are going to be a trap for us because we have this leak audio of the member of the council of the electoral council and a member of the national party who are plotting a trap in the preliminary results to appoint someone else as a winner.
06:39So we are not going to accept the preliminary result. No matter what is the result, we are going to wait for the final counting of all the ballots.
06:46And for the other hand, we have other candidates who are willing to accept the preliminary results. But since we have this endorsement of Trump, it's still going to be quite an issue because we have political interests and geopolitical interests in this election.
07:07So I don't believe that we are going to have a winner in the night of the election. So I don't believe that we are going to have a winner in the night of the election. There is probably going to be appeals and other.
07:14Okay. And that's exactly my question. First of all, do you believe that in the night of the election, all the votes are going to be counted or it's going to take longer than that night?
07:24The process is at first electronic. So we received the digital version of the vote, but it's finally counted at least in one week after we received the physical polls. So at this point, we don't believe that we are going to have a winner tomorrow night.
07:47There is going to be a lot of issues in the election, probably mostly legal issues. We don't believe that there is going to be a lot of civil unrest in this, at least during the day of the election.
08:01But probably when we have these fierce preliminary results, there is going to be a lot of commotion. And we are asking people to remain calm, to remain at peace, to wait for the final result.
08:15But still, since it takes a week, there is probably going to be some civil unrest during that time.
08:22So do you believe, therefore, that more than one candidate is going to declare himself or herself the winner at the same time?
08:33I believe that almost every candidate is going to declare himself as a winner. And the only one that is going to be right is us, because we have the votes and we believe that we are going to win. The polls show that.
08:47But when you have the U.S. president backing you, you are going to be probably feel empowered enough to declare yourself as a winner, even if you don't have the votes.
09:00And the other candidate has the trap built in the preliminary results. So he's probably going to also claim himself as a winner.
09:09So we have quite an issue on the night of the election. And at least at this point, we depend on the institution to do all the voting, all the counting and then declare a final winner at least in one week.
09:26Russell, thanks very much for joining us.
09:28Thank you for having me.
09:29We were talking to Russell Garay. He is the director of strategy of the candidate of the official party Libre that according to at least one of the polls, she is a favorite to win the election.
09:45It's called Tea Research, the poll institution that makes that poll. And mostly we're going to have throughout the morning and throughout the whole day reports from this special team of Telesur.
10:00We're going to be reporting from here, from the studios in Tegucigalpa, from our headquarters in Caracas and all over the country.
10:10We're going to be following very, very closely all the results and all the developments of this historic presidential election.
10:19We get back to you now.
10:22Thank you, Jorge Stolz. Of course, thanks to your special guests over there at the set in Honduras, as we continue to provide more details on everything surrounding the election day coming up in less than 24 hours on Sunday, November 30th in Honduras.
10:35Let's now continue with our news. Venezuela denounces and condemns the colonialist threat that seeks to undermine the sovereignty of its airspace, which constitutes a new outrageous, illegal and unjustified aggression against its people.
10:48In a statement, the Foreign Ministry affirmed Venezuela strongly condemns the public message posted today on social media by the president of the United States, in which he pretends to extraterritorially apply the illegitimate jurisdiction of the United States in Venezuela by astonishingly attempting to give orders and threatening the sovereignty of the national airspace, territorial integrity, aviation security and the full sovereignty of the Venezuelan states.
11:15It also stated through this action, the United States government has unilaterally suspended the regular weekly flights that had been operating as part of the repatriation of Venezuelans during through the Back to the Homeland program.
11:32Today, 75 flights have been made to repatriate 13,956 Venezuelan migrants who have been welcomed with love and absolute solidarity.
11:39The statement concludes, we call directly on the international community, the sovereign governments of the world, the United Nations and the relevant multilateral organizations to firmly reject the immoral act of aggression, which amounts to a threat against the sovereignty and security of our homeland, the Caribbean and Northern South America.
12:01Venezuela will respond with dignity, legality and all the strength granted by international law and anti-imperial spirit of our people.
12:08Regarding this statement, Venezuela's Minister of Defense Vladimir Padrino Lopez also condemned the U.S. interventionist threats.
12:21On his social media accounts, he said, this threat by the United States government is an illegal, arbitrary act of aggression that validates international law and seeks to infringe upon the absolute sovereignty of our airspace.
12:33The continuous, no foreign power has the authority to interfere with, block or condition Venezuela's sovereign decisions.
12:43We call on the international community to condemn this hostile act that threatens peace in the Caribbean and South America.
12:50Venezuela will respond with dignity, legality and the moral strength of a people who will never allow their honor to be tarnished.
12:58We will defend our sovereignty at any cost.
13:28There are wild that are impacting the shadow of a people who will not assign inrible man against the genocide of an
13:42eating, right?
13:43In the long term, thealted rap unions may even be used by their deaths.
13:48If you have a elderly man who does not live in Tampa, they may be used by m even more in MARY-만 kN在諾rop,
Be the first to comment