Democracy EN ACCION!
This past Sunday a plebiscite was held in three communities in San José, to approve or reject the cutting of trees and selling of wood from a mountain named Cargamón. One of the communities affected is Delicias, the largest aldea in San José which is trying to exploit Cargamón to finance its electricity project. The other two communities, Porvenir and Nueva Esperanza, are on the other side of the mountain and some there are worried that the tree-cutting will be done irresponsibly. As a result, the mayor decided to hold a plebiscite… and invited ME to serve as an international observer :)
I woke up that morning at 4am to be ready to leave at 5. We left with employees from the municipality, members of the Municipal Corporation and local commissions who “worked the polls,” you could say. We set up in Porvenir first, then arrived at Nueva Esperanza where a group of citizens was barring our entrance to the school/polling station. Apparently the community was against exploiting Cargamón, and they voiced their opposition by not voting at all. Here’s a shot of the mayor (blue shirt) and a community member (yellow shirt) staring each other down Honduran-style (i.e. not looking at each other at all and trying to be as non-confrontational as possible).
The guy in the rubber boots with his arms crossed is another community member refusing entrance. So Nueva Esperanza decided not to participate. Así es la vida.
We finally made it to Delicias where we set up two polling stations in the school, and where I stayed and observed until 5pm.
Here they are setting up the sign for “Urn #2.” In Spanish the sign reads: “Plebiscite for the approval of exploitation and selling of wood in the site named Cargamón, Aldea las Delicias, San José de Comayagua”
The voting process was very low-tech: we wrote down the voter’s name and ID on a list, gave them the paper that read SÍ or NO and had them vote in a corner of the room. The vote was then ratified and placed in the box, and the voter’s pinky finger was covered in ink (no “I voted” stickers here).
Our first female voter of the day!
Here’s Dalila from the municipality explaining the SI and NO boxes to a voter. After voting the guy in the orange shirt wrote “ratified” on it, and they placed it in the box. The crowd of kids and other random folks blocked the doorway for nearly the entire day, and nobody seemed to care. Lots of people saw me and came in to do the customary staring in horror and whispering to each other. I started asking the little kids questions like “are you here to vote too?” and “why don’t you say something to me?” and they scurried away. Oh that pena.
In the end the plebiscite passed with an overwhelming number of SI votes. So I guess the environment lost that day. But the Honduran political process WON! I was totally impressed with how orderly, transparent and accurate the voting process was. Dalila trained the commissions the day before on the process so that they knew which votes were valid and which were null, what to do if a voter were illiterate, etc. Members of the municipal transparency commission were there to oversee everything. The entire day went really smoothly. PLUS, there were nearly 300 voters out of around 600 that came to vote in Delicias that day—and for a mere plebiscite! Young people came out in droves, women came with up to 5 kids in tow, and even old men and women who couldn’t read or write made sure to be there. That’s a kind of participation to write home about. Or a blog entry.
In all, I was very happy with the way things were run, and very proud of San José and its plebiscite process. Hurray for Honduran democracy!!
I woke up that morning at 4am to be ready to leave at 5. We left with employees from the municipality, members of the Municipal Corporation and local commissions who “worked the polls,” you could say. We set up in Porvenir first, then arrived at Nueva Esperanza where a group of citizens was barring our entrance to the school/polling station. Apparently the community was against exploiting Cargamón, and they voiced their opposition by not voting at all. Here’s a shot of the mayor (blue shirt) and a community member (yellow shirt) staring each other down Honduran-style (i.e. not looking at each other at all and trying to be as non-confrontational as possible).
The guy in the rubber boots with his arms crossed is another community member refusing entrance. So Nueva Esperanza decided not to participate. Así es la vida.
We finally made it to Delicias where we set up two polling stations in the school, and where I stayed and observed until 5pm.
Here they are setting up the sign for “Urn #2.” In Spanish the sign reads: “Plebiscite for the approval of exploitation and selling of wood in the site named Cargamón, Aldea las Delicias, San José de Comayagua”
The voting process was very low-tech: we wrote down the voter’s name and ID on a list, gave them the paper that read SÍ or NO and had them vote in a corner of the room. The vote was then ratified and placed in the box, and the voter’s pinky finger was covered in ink (no “I voted” stickers here).
Here is our first voter putting his vote in the “urn.” He handed us the paper without folding it and thereby showing everyone in the room what his vote was. Privacy, apparently, is not as important here as in the States.
Our first female voter of the day!
Here’s Dalila from the municipality explaining the SI and NO boxes to a voter. After voting the guy in the orange shirt wrote “ratified” on it, and they placed it in the box. The crowd of kids and other random folks blocked the doorway for nearly the entire day, and nobody seemed to care. Lots of people saw me and came in to do the customary staring in horror and whispering to each other. I started asking the little kids questions like “are you here to vote too?” and “why don’t you say something to me?” and they scurried away. Oh that pena.
In the end the plebiscite passed with an overwhelming number of SI votes. So I guess the environment lost that day. But the Honduran political process WON! I was totally impressed with how orderly, transparent and accurate the voting process was. Dalila trained the commissions the day before on the process so that they knew which votes were valid and which were null, what to do if a voter were illiterate, etc. Members of the municipal transparency commission were there to oversee everything. The entire day went really smoothly. PLUS, there were nearly 300 voters out of around 600 that came to vote in Delicias that day—and for a mere plebiscite! Young people came out in droves, women came with up to 5 kids in tow, and even old men and women who couldn’t read or write made sure to be there. That’s a kind of participation to write home about. Or a blog entry.
In all, I was very happy with the way things were run, and very proud of San José and its plebiscite process. Hurray for Honduran democracy!!
posted by Maureen at 1:21 PM
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