libre party honduras

He is also the youngest member of Honduras’s National Congress, and speaks glowingly of the electoral reform. “Military policemen are ex-members of the national army. Yet despite revolutionary violence’s perverse allure as a tool for social change, Laínez adamantly rejects the notion of repeating that past. Su función es interpretar y expresar el pensamiento y la fuerza del pueblo en Resistencia. It has more idealistic left-wing liberals such as Carlos Eduardo Reina and Eduardo Enrique Reina. “But the five patrols caught them afterwards. Estás reportando este comentario a la redacción. It’s the reason, he says, so many have taken to the streets in often, volcanic displays of anger. “It was a day you couldn’t forget,” said Dorian Alvarez, a sociology student and activist at the UNAH. The North American Congress on Latin America is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization. Partido Libre, Tegucigalpa. Ten years after coup, Hondurans flee amid violence and repression. Not even the Congress in which we work. “But we can call it an authoritarian government…You can see how this is all boiling to a tipping point—how Juan Orlando created a military police; how he’s giving unprecedented power to the military.”, After a few days, the flurry of international press coverage the revelations died off. Zelaya and LIBRE compose only one part of a wide-ranging, fractured opposition movement though. “The electoral reform is an instrument for elections,” Zelaya said. On August 9, Zelaya and his left-opposition LIBRE party organized a demonstration in Tegucigalpa’s Parque Central to demand the immediate resignation of Juan Orlando Hernández (or “JOH,” as he’s commonly known). Click here to show your support. No longer could the graffiti scrawled throughout countless Tegucigalpa slums—Fuera, Narco-dictador! The summer’s second major wave of protests overtook the streets following the revelations, demanding once more that the president resign. And many worry as protesters have faced increasingly bloody crackdowns with the creation of special military police units, such as the notorious Policía Militar del Órden Público (Military Police for Public Order, PMOP) in 2013, which was accused of killing protesters in 2017 and 2018. “Any form of struggle. Honduras is one of the poorest countries in Latin America, according to the CIA World Factbook. Libre, a new party led by the wife of the ousted president, is a frontrunner among 8 parties competing in the upcoming vote. More repression.”. Another came with a club, and beat me in the legs. Latin American Perspectives is a theoretical and scholarly journal for discussion and debate on the political economy of capitalism, imperialism, and socialism in the Americas. The government created a special course to be able to call them military ‘police,’ and then dispatch them to maintain ‘public order,’” said Mario Argeñal, a leader in COPEMH, Honduras’ largest union, as well as LIBRE. Now, Salvadoran gangmembers from MS-13—who began crossing the border in 2016 to escape their own government—have occupied several empty houses, killing three villagers in 2018, according to Laínez. Honduras' former President Manuel Zelaya (2006-2009) opposed the CNE decision because "the conditions are not created for going to the polls. With a new electoral law under discussion, and without a completed electoral census, we cannot begin the primary process," Zelaya said. She protested against the right-wing government that took over Honduras after it ousted Zelaya and helped form the leftist Liberty and Refoundation party, known as Libre, before she was assassinated. Human rights leader Jose Carlos Cárdona believes that, should nothing change, Honduras is on the precipice of a catastrophe unlike any the country has yet experienced. Even so, one thing unites the opposition: The country can no longer wait for the 2020 election to get rid of the president. Source: Frente Nacional de Resistancia Popular. “The entire university was protesting, basically. Like this article? In late April, Hernández announced a sweeping plan to privatize Honduras’s public health and education systems, while the government simultaneously agreed to a $311 million loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). This summer marked 10 years since Zelaya was overthrown in a U.S.-backed military coup. One of the most common refrains from members of the Tea Party movement in the United States is "take back America." That opposition remains divided over their post-JOH vision for the country. Watch Honduras: LIBRE Party questions Supreme Court of Justice's decision - byojwapa on Dailymotion Night after night, massive crowds of protesters burned tires throughout Tegucigalpa, shouting Fuera JOH! The opposition in Honduras is largely led by the leftist Libre Party, headed by former President Manuel Zelaya, who was ousted in the 2009 coup, overseen by then US President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Because it’s corrupted, because narcotraffickers have penetrated the majority of state institutions,” said Lenín Laínez, a congressman for LIBRE. The headline was as straightforward as it was bleak: “Hondurans have little cause for hope.”, Soon after the revelations, with media attention drifting elsewhere, protests against JOH fizzled out with no changes in government; the country had returned to business as usual. The LIBRE party was formed after the coup by members of La Resistencia and has the second-largest representation in Congress. teleSUR/SM, by El Partido Libertad y Refundación (Libre) fue creado como brazo político del FNRP el 26 de junio del 2011. Twitter:@PartidoLibre correo: prensa@libre.hn Discover (and save!) Carrying 44 representatives from each main party, they would oversee the next election cycle. “It’s divided between different sectors,” Zelaya said of the opposition to Hernández. The opposition parties consider that a new electoral law is required to hold the next elections. We just need a little flame. He set it off, and put it against my face. “Ever since 2009, when they got rid of me,” Zelaya said, “an authoritarian military regime was installed that centralized power, sacked the [government’s] institutions and indebted the country to remain in power. This demonstration was followed by similar events across the country. On June 21, President Hernández dispatched the military throughout the country to crack down on protests. “One took me by the hair,” she said. And then everything goes to hell.”. LIBRE has been advocating electoral reform since before the 2017 vote, and European Union election observers have also stressed the need for reforms. Jared Olson is a Pulitzer Center grantee, writer and freelance journalist whose work focuses on the struggle for justice in Central America. Manuel Zelaya Rosales submitted 80,000 signatures from Honduran citizens supporting the founding of this political party. At least 33 were killed by security forces in protests in the weeks of violence following the December 2017 electoral fraud. M anuel Zelaya, Honduras’s ousted ex-President, eased into the couch in the headquarters for his LIBRE party and laid out the opposition’s mounting insurrection. We’re all united in that 100 percent.”, “We can’t call it a dictatorship per se,” said a UNAH student, who asked to remain anonymous for safety reasons, of JOH’s legacy. (Get out, Narco-dictator! The party is the home of extreme leftists such as Juan Barahona, Rafael Alegría, and Carlos Reyes. But that faith seems overwhelmed by bitterness over the depth of government corruption. "To call for elections, we must first guarantee transparency and security. The bills have the backing of conservative President Juan Orlando Hernández. As Honduras deals with the fallout of political scandals surrounding President Juan Orlando Hernández, ousted former president Manuel Zelaya and his LIBRE party mount their opposition. Student protests in the name of defending public education against creeping fees and undemocratic university decision-making processes have been bubbling at UNAH for years. Over 50% of the population lives in poverty and per … “LIBRE party (Libertad y Refundacion Party) pre-candidates, candidates, their families and campaign leaders have suffered more killings and armed attacks than all other political parties combined. “The elites are well-organized. #OnThisDay | Environmental activist #BertaCaceres was murdered four years ago in #Honduras.#BertaVive pic.twitter.com/KlllrBmDQ8, Sign In or Register to leave a comment, use the forums and more, I have already subscribed | Do not show this message again. Honduras' leftist Libre party held internal elections this Sunday to choose 6,400 new political leaders across the country. That way we can define who may go to the polls to elect a new government," he said and explained that updating an electoral roll takes time. Copyright NACLA 2019 Violent crackdowns have become characteristic of the JOH regime. But he has his doubts about such reform efforts in the first place: He believes that as long as they work within the existing system, they’re still assenting to a regime that has rigged the democracy to its own advantage. For Argeñal, those doubts don’t come from nowhere. Three-quarters of all U.S.-bound cocaine passes through Honduras, and the U.S. has three forward-operating bases in rural and coastal Honduras, used for training the Army in drug interdiction. It’s a highly militarized society.”. Libre’s candidate for Honduras’ top office will be Zelaya’s wife Xiomara Castro, who ran as the party’s inaugural candidate in the 2013 election against Hernandez. With elections around the corner and a playing field tilted against them, it is time for LIBRE, the PL, and Nasralla to leave their differences behind and offer voters a unified platform. This could potentially augur radical change in the electoral processes in Honduras, as the two proposed bodies would entirely replace the TSE (Tribunal Suprema Electoral, or Supreme Electoral Tribunal), the judicial body which became notorious for legitimizing the fraudulent elections in 2013 and 2017. (Get out JOH), and drawing the ire of security forces, who responded by raining down barrages of teargas on them—or occasionally, live bullets. “To participate in an electoral system without transparency is to certify the dictatorship,” said Argeñal of the need for electoral reform. “But the people don’t believe that,” he said. As of August 30, no further progress had yet been made. We’re telling the regime to get out. Thousands of Hondurans have fled the country in recent months as a government crackdown on protests continues. Since the coup, a junta of right-wing, billionaire drug traffickers has slipped into political power—including President Juan Orlando Hernández, who U.S. prosecutors recently accused of complicity in a drug money scheme to illegally fund his 2013 presidential campaign. by The first major step towards completing a substantial electoral reform, after eight months of deliberations, was completed. It is remarkably similar in resonance to the Libre Party's references to claiming Honduras for El Pueblo (The People). C. Comisión especial rechaza el fraudulento sistema de transmisión resultados TSE. List of political parties in Honduras. The president admitted millions in embezzled funds benefited his 2013 electoral campaign. He burned me; burned my face.”. He has been involved in anti-government protests in the 10 years since the coup. 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