Honduras

A 26 de novembro vai haver eleições presidenciais nas Honduras; tudo indica que o atual presidente (Juan Orlando Hernández, do Partido Nacional - mais ou menos correspondente ao nosso CDS/PP) vai ser reeleito.

Os mais atentos (e que se lembram do golpe de 2009) perguntarão "reeleito, como? A proibição da reeleição não era uma cláusula inalterável da Constituição hondurenha, em que bastava alguém sugerir o  fim da proibição da reeleição para esse alguém ficar automaticamente proibido de se candidatar?" - lembremo-nos que o simples rumor que o então presidente Zelaya teria uma espécie de plano secreto para permitir a reeleição foi apresentado como o argumento para justificar a sua deposição (ver aqui o João Miranda ou o Miguel Sousa Tavares, em 2009). O que aconteceu então?

Em 2015, o Supremo Tribunal das Honduras decretou que o artigo da constituição proibindo a reeleição era, ele próprio, inconstitucional (uma constituição pode ser inconstitucional??), e na sequência disso o presidente pôde recandidatar-se - curiosamente, as pessoas que em 2009 estavam tão indignadas contra Zelaya por este, alegadamente, estar a planear o fim da proibição da reeleição, em 2015 não se incomodaram nada quando veio mesmo o fim da proibição, e de uma forma muito heterodoxa (desde quando um Supremo Tribunal ou um Tribunal Constitucional assume, ele próprio, poder para rever a constituição? E, claro, quem discorde vai queixar-se a quem? Ao próprio Supremo Tribunal? - aliás, ao que parece todos os juízes que tomaram a decisão foram escolhidos pelos atuais governantes).

Ainda sobre as Honduras, o que há alguns meses era escrito sobre ela no blogue Bloggingsbyboz:

David Frum's excellent article on autocracy isn't directed at Latin America, but at least one paragraph does deserve a response: «A president who plausibly owes his office at least in part to a clandestine intervention by a hostile foreign intelligence service? Who uses the bully pulpit to target individual critics? Who creates blind trusts that are not blind, invites his children to commingle private and public business, and somehow gets the unhappy members of his own political party either to endorse his choices or shrug them off? If this were happening in Honduras, we’d know what to call it.»

Frum probably doesn't follow Central America closely, but do we really know what to call it in Honduras?

President Juan Orlando Hernandez won a slim plurality of the vote and started governing day one as if he had a massive majority of support. He uses the bully pulpit to target critics, and more troublingly, critics who belong to human rights and environmental groups have been threatened, assaulted and killed in large numbers. The president has complete control over the National Party. He has manipulated the legislature and the courts to overrule the constitution and run for a new term in office. The corruption scandals involving his family, friends and business allies are numerous and barely investigated due to his control over significant portions of the country's three branches. I have spoken with numerous journalists in recent years who complain that physical threats or limitations by media owners prevent them from publishing the stories they would like to criticizing the government.

And while Hernandez doesn't owe his office to a "a clandestine intervention by a hostile foreign intelligence service" (in spite of some of the conspiracies about the 2009 coup), the US has provided full support for the Hernandez government and the significant assistance to his security apparatus. The US has been muted in its criticisms of Hernandez that it would certainly air if the government was more antagonistic and less cooperative on drug and military policy. To Hernandez's domestic opponents, it certainly looks as if a foreign power is tipping the scales in the favor of the president.

Do we know what to call it? Do we call it what it is? (...)

I'm sure Frum chose to throw out the name "Honduras" because in his mind it is the original "banana republic." However, the country is not that simple. Like Hungary and Venezuela (both cited in the article), Honduras is yet another example of exactly the type of confusing modern democratic manipulation by corrupt wannabe autocrats that Frum attempts to describe. Honduras's situation is complicated and complex and may even hold some lessons for what to watch in the US and Europe from similar types of autocrat-lite leaders.