As Hondurans continue to go to the polls in Sunday’s key general elections, let's welcome international analyst Ermelinda Malcotte, to go deeper in the analysis of this electoral day. teleSUR
00:00Today's key general elections, let's now welcome international analyst Ermerlinda Malkot to go deeper in the analysis of this electoral day.
00:07Welcome Ermerlinda to From the South.
00:10Hello, thank you very much for inviting me.
00:12As always, it's a pleasure. Ermerlinda, Hondurans are voting in these key general elections.
00:17What are the key factors to take into account for this Sunday's election day?
00:21Well, there are lots of key factors because the Latin American continent is under lots of pressure from the United States, so there are lots of key factors.
00:33The main one is that the actual government in Honduras is aligned with progressive and leftist policies, and so it's aligned with Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, and also all the progressive countries of Latin America.
00:51So following that path, it would be extremely important in the face of the crisis that the United States is pushing Latin America towards.
01:01The second incredibly important factor is, of course, the intermission of the United States into Honduras' elections.
01:08For example, one representative of the Congress, Maria Elvira Salazar, from Florida, she's a Republican, she said that elections in Honduras was the main topic of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Congress.
01:25So there are lots of risks of intermission of the United States in those elections.
01:29So it's first facing the crisis within a light in Honduras and then secure that the elections are democratic and express the will of the people of Honduras and not the will of the United States.
01:42We are seeing, as you were saying, the interference of the U.S. in this electoral process, which, of course, goes entirely against international law.
01:49And we saw President Donald Trump issue a threat.
01:53We can say that if the candidate that he endorses does not win, he will cut off any kind of international aid and international cooperation with the Honduran people.
02:03What would be the impact if Donald Trump follows through with that threat of trying to impose his candidate and his will on Honduras?
02:13Well, there will be lots of effects, first of all, of course, for Honduras, because the United States and the programs of the United States, of course, are flowing a lot of money to foreign countries in order to develop some aspects they want to see developing there.
02:34But it also helps a lot of civil society organization.
02:38It's a very difficult process to evaluate.
02:43So, of course, that will have an impact.
02:45But we also can foresee that he will act on tariff and so on to pressure Honduras if the result of the election doesn't go the way he wants.
02:56And, of course, if he can't transform the election as the way he wants, because information can also be on the result of the election.
03:05So this is one thing that is very, very important.
03:07The second thing is that the Central American region is also fearing a lot of, I mean, they are not close to Venezuela geographically, but still they are not that far.
03:22And they are really fearing that what would happen to Venezuela if the United States decide to go one step further and they say they would go that step further.
03:32They are very, very, very worried about what could happen to them.
03:35It's difficult to foresee what it could be, because with Donald Trump you can never understand it.
03:42It's not easy.
03:43But they know that pressure will go on and go on.
03:47And that would happen whatever the result of the election, because the Monroe Doctrine that has been reactivated with Donald Trump would go whatever president is there.
03:57But, of course, a progressive president like Rixi Moncala will align with other country, progressive country, and that would give some force to that progressive countries in the Latin American continent.
04:13Speaking of Rixi Moncala, before casting her ballot early in the morning, she offered statements and she said that Honduras today have two options.
04:23To go back to the drug dictatorship that existed before 2021, from 2009 when the coup d'etat happened against former president Manuel Zelaya until 2021.
04:33Or to vote for the future of the country, to vote and put her trust in the Refoundation Project, which is continuing to provide results.
04:40How do you think the vote will favor in this election day and how do you think the turnout will happen in this context?
04:47There have been, during the whole presidential campaign, there have been lots of allegations of sabotage attempts, especially with the early transmission system.
04:54Yes, the transmission system has shown some failure in the tests that they have been doing in the past, and those failures are not technical failures, but they were probably showing some kind of interference from the right-wing party and with the help of the United States.
05:13So this is something that is really preoccupying on the other hand, there are lots of polls that have been issued on Honduras, and they give very different results and are difficult to trust them.
05:28But there is one polling institute that has given very good results on the previous election, and they are saying now it's tea research poll institute.
05:38And they say that Moncada has 44% of intention of votes, and it is 14% upper than the second one, which is Nasrallah.
05:50So that polling institute is quite trustful, and they say that she would win the election.
06:00But we cannot know what would happen, because there were some audios that has been, the general attorney of Honduras has said that he has the opportunity to hear some audio with the right-wing members of the National Electoral Council that were speaking about interfering in the electoral process.
06:26So this is a high risk in Honduras, given, first, the intermission of the United States and the fact that they say that it's a very important issue for them, and second, because right-wing doesn't play the democratic game there.
06:42So, yes, and of course, the third thing is that President Donald Trump of the United States has just pardoned one of the biggest narco-traffickers of Honduras, which is the ex-president José Orlando Hernández, which is from the National Party, which he endorsed for those elections.
07:02Not the candidate, but the party.
07:03So it's a very, very complicated game.
07:05Thank you very much, Merlinda, for your time here in From the South.
07:09Unfortunately, we don't have time for more, but we'll stay tuned in our coming news brief to continue debating on the issue.
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