Honduras: election of President of Parliament turns to Fiasco

Members of the Freedom and Refounded Party proposed one of them as President of the Parliament, in violation of an agreement with another left party, causing invectives and jostling.

Le Monde with AFP

The election, Friday, January 21, President of Parliament in Honduras fired the political crisis, after the secession of twenty members of the elected president, Xiomara Castro, a week of his function.
In the inventives began at the opening of the session, when these twenty members of the Liberté and Refoundation Party (free, left) proposed one of them, Jorge Calix, as President of Parliament, in Violation of an agreement with another left party, the Savior Party of Honduras (PSH). In the cries of “traitors”, seven deputies faithful to the elected president rushed on Jorge Calix, forcing him to flee from the perch while he lent an oath.

According to the Minister of the Interior, Leonel Ayala, who belongs to the National Party (right), whose candidate was beaten to the presidential election by Xiomara Castro, the candidacy of Mr. Calix was supported by 83 deputies. The President of Parliament must gather the votes of 65 deputies on 128. With Jorge Calix at the perch, the national party, defeated in the polls, “managed to maneuver and to obtain control of Parliament,” said the agency. France-Presse (AFP) Eugenio Sosa, Professor of Sociology at National University.

The leader of the free party, Gilberto Rios, told AFP that behind the 20 deputies acted “organized crime, financial power, narcotrafic and all those who loot the resources of the state”.

“definitive exclusion of the deputies” dissident

Xiomara Castro, first woman elected at the head of Honduras, had held a meeting with the members of his party to ask them to support the member Luis Redondo for the presidency of Parliament. But twenty members of fifty had boycotted the meeting.

“The absence of the twenty deputies is an augury of a counter-revolutionary betrayal towards the party and the Honduran people (…) and a betrayal towards the political refoundation project of the country, attempting (…) d ‘impose a plan of the corrupt elite that is running [the former president] Juan Orlando Hernandez, “the president had denounced. Friday night, M me Castro announced “the definitive exclusion of the” dissident “deputies, after an emergency meeting of the party instances.

Xiomara Castro, which will take office on January 27, won the elections on a social transformations program in a poverty-gang-generated country, corruption, and drug trafficking that infiltrated state structures. In particular, it was elected thanks to the Alliance passed between free, led by Manuel Zelaya – his husband and former president, ousted in 2009 – and the Savior Party of Honduras (PSH), directed by Salvador Nasralla.

The agreement with the PSH provided that in case of the victory of the Coalition Mr. Nasralla would be elected Vice-President of Parliament and could propose the name of the President. The election of the President of Parliament must still be definitively confirmed on 23 January, two days before the official opening of the parliamentary session.

/Media reports.