by BRIGITTE GYNTHER
Every day and night for four consecutive months, the Lenca people of San Francisco Opalaca have been maintaining a 24-hour blockade and vigil at the entrance to their Mayor’s office, thus preventing the ruling party-imposed candidate from taking office. The Honduran government claims National Party candidate Socorro Sanchez won the Mayoral race in Opalaca during last November’s elections. However, the people of Opalaca know otherwise. The fraud that occurred in San Francisco Opalaca – a remote Indigenous Lenca municipality in the Honduran state of Intibuca – is a microcosm of the larger electoral fraud that many people believe occurred all across the country in November’s election as the ruling National Party consolidated power and prevented the widely popular LIBRE party from winning the presidency.
In San Francisco Opalaca, Socorro Sanchez came to power in the widely boycotted elections following the 2009 military coup in Honduras. For the 2013 elections, he used his position to prepare a system of fraud to ensure he stayed in power. Residents of Opalaca report that people from La Esperanza, Azacualpa, Otoro, and other places were registered to vote in Opalaca ahead of the elections. Not only were these National Party loyalists from other places reportedly registered to vote in Opalaca, but they were also reportedly brought in to work the voting stations as table representatives. Community leaders contend that the National Party purchased 32 voting table credentials from the small political parties, as they in other voting stations across the country, stacking the table workers against the new LIBRE party when it came time to count the votes. Socorro Sanchez also bought votes, pressuring residents and offering money. If you were extremely poor, he reportedly offered 500 Lempiras; if you were a little better off the offer was 1,000 to 1,500 Lempiras. One man recalls how his brother had never supported the National Party before, but after being constantly pressured by the Mayor, he felt he had no other choice than to join the party.
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