Hernández edges toward Honduras presidency with no mandate, no majority and no money
November 26, 2013 Kevin Lees	Leave a comment
I write today at Americas Quarterly that even as Juan Orlando Hernández closes in on the Honduran presidency, he'll do so with nearly historic obstacles to governing Honduras — in short, he'll take over the leadership of his country with no mandate, no majority and no money:
In light of Honduras's single-round, first-past-the-post electoral system, [leftist party] LIBRE's advent made it a near-certainty that the next president would win with less than an absolute majority. If Hernández wins with just 34 percent of the vote, it will mean that nearly two-thirds of Honduran voters rejected his approach. Both [opponent Xiomara] Castro de Zelaya and fourth-place candidate Salvador Nasralla (who's polling a higher-than-expected 15.64 percent)—a populist sports broadcaster who started a rival right-wing "Anti-Corruption Party"—have already alleged fraud. It's too soon to know if those accusations have any substance, but there's certainly enough doubt—not least of all due to the National Party's disputed 2012 primary elections—to take them seriously.
But even if it turns out that Honduras's election was "free" in a technical sense, there's wider doubt that it was a truly fair election. LIBRE candidates, along with journalists and various other activists, have been killed, attacked and harassed with alarming frequency since the 2009 coup. On Saturday night, two LIBRE leaders were assassinated near Tegucigalpa, Honduras' capital. They weren't the first LIBRE activists to be killed in Honduras and they won't be the last—with little apparent ability to combat the world's highest homicide rate, the Honduran state is unable to investigate murderers who can kill with impunity.
I argue further that it will also be difficult for Hernández to form (or buy) an alliance if, as expected, a four-way parliamentary election leads to the result that no party wins an absolute majority in the Congreso Nacional (National Congress):
LIBRE is certain to oppose Hernández at every step, especially if Castro de Zelaya digs in with her refusal to concede the election and especially if she has good reason for protest. Even without Castro de Zelaya, the new party seems to have sparked a genuine political realignment that isn't likely to disappear with one election or the political stardom of the Zelayas.
With a disappointing third-place finish, the Partido Liberal (PL, Liberal Party) is likely to want to win back many of the supporters that left it to support the Zelayas and LIBRE. There's a strong argument that the last thing that the Liberals will want to do is join forces with Hernández at a time when their party's raison d'être is under siege — instead, the Liberals would be smart to draw contrasts with Hernández.
Notably, Hernández pushed through the centerpiece of his campaign, a controversial military police force, in August, when his conservative Partido Nacional (National Party) held 71 of the Congress's 128 seats. Even if the National Party somehow wins an unlikely majority when the results of Sunday's parliamentary vote are known, Hernández certainly won't have 71 seats — it's more likely that he'll have a caucus in the 50s. That comes at a time when it's almost certain he'll seek a loan from the International Monetary Fund, with terms that will impose spending limits on Hernández's administration:
Honduras' precarious finances will also clip Hernández' wings. With a nearly 4 percent budget deficit in 2012 and a public debt of 35 percent of GDP, Honduras can barely pay its public employees. Financial strains have also limited the ability of both the national and municipal governments to pay police and military officials enough to discourage collusion with drug traffickers. Financing a new military police force, too, means less money for reducing poverty and unemployment, building roads and hospitals, and crafting economic policy to reduce income inequality in Honduras.
fraudhondurasIMFjuan orlando hernandezLIBREnasrallanational partyPNxiomaraxiomara castrozelaya
Israel, Palestine
Israeli security wall adds 2000s-era difficulty to Israeli-Palestinian peace talks
November 26, 2013 Kevin Lees	2 Comments
RAMALLAH — I've been in Israel and/or Palestine for all of less than 48 hours, but I've had a chance to see Jerusalem from both the Jewish side and the Palestinian side.
One of the more difficult security issues over the 2000s, which sprung out of the violence of the Second Intifada between 2000 and 2005 is the construction of a wall between Israel proper, on the one side, and the Palestinian West Bank, on the other.
There are many reasons for the controversy, which remains a delicate issue for Israeli-Palestinian peace talks these days, to the extent that a glimmer of hope earlier this year, due largely to the efforts of Israeli justice minister Tzipi Livni and US secretary of state John Kerry, still exists. That's a doubtful proposition given that the US response to Syrian chemical weapons and its new deal with Iran over nuclear energy have both incensed Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It's especially doubtful, too, because hardline nationalist Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman has now returned following the reversal of his conviction earlier this month.
The first is among Israeli settlers themselves in the West Bank, who will find themselves especially isolated from the rest of Israel when the wall is completed. That means that many traditionally hard-line, pro-settler types on the right of Israeli politics opposed the security border from its inception.
The second is that the wall isn't exactly accurate — it tracks the 1949/1967 Green Line between Israel and the Palestinian Territories only very loosely. Take a guess as to which side the Israel-built wall errs. Up to 10% of the West Bank will be within the 'Israeli' side of the wall when it's completed, largely on the basis of land seized from Palestinians in areas that lie on the Palestinian side of the Green Line.
That complicates life inordinately for Palestinians.
Here's the wall from the Israeli side en route to Bethlehem:
Here's the same wall from the Palestinian side (also shown above):
The wall's construction, especially around Jerusalem, means that routes that once took a few minutes now take a half-hour or an hour (i.e., the road to Bethlehem). There are also a litany of familiar complaints from the United Nations on down to other humanitarian groups, both Israeli and Palestinian, who believe that the security wall violates international law and that it impedes access to cultural and civic institutions that fall on the Israeli side of the wall. UN action against the security wall, however, has been consistently vetoed by the United States, a permanent member of the UN Security Council, though even former US president George W. Bush a decade ago called the wall a problem:
Speaking about the Israeli security fence, Mr Bush said: 'It is very difficult to develop confidence between the Palestinians and Israelis with a wall snaking through the West Bank.'
Two of the strongest complaints revolve around access to health care and access to water. Currently, if you have a sudden illness in Ramallah, a Palestinian ambulance will rush you to the checkpoint, where you'll wait for clearance and an Israeli ambulance to carry you the rest of the way to the best Palestinian hospitals in East Jerusalem. The wall also means that much of the water and fertility of the Jordan Valley is now (or will be) on the Israeli side of the wall, leaving Palestinians in the position of being forced to buy water from Israel. That's hardly a satisfactory solution for Palestinians. Continue reading Israeli security wall adds 2000s-era difficulty to Israeli-Palestinian peace talks →
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