The reasons cited are:
"1. The people who carried out the June 28 coup will have gotten exactly what they wanted...The message will be that “crime does pay...Elites throughout the region who are unhappy with elected leaders (El Salvador, Guatemala, and Paraguay come to mind, but there are several others) will view the U.S. government recognition of tomorrow’s elections as a capitulation. They will know that if they pull off a coup of their own, the United States’ opposition will be brittle and quickly reversed upon the slightest pretext.
(DS: All this from a country that is waging several wars at the same time to supposedly 'restore democracy'! This same country invaded Haiti with an operation called 'Uphold Democracy' which was "a response to the overthrow and expulsion of the duly elected government of Haiti by a military coup.")
2. The conditions for a fair vote were not in place. Determining the legitimacy of elections requires more than just observing what happens on election day. In the months before the voting, were some parties or candidates unable to assemble, organize and campaign peacefully? Did they have difficulty gaining fair access to the media? Were supporters of some candidates or political tendencies subject to official repression? Here are links to several eyewitness reports indicating that the answer to these questions is “yes.” Honduras’s 2009 election campaign took place in a climate of fear in which media outlets were shuttered, candidates were put at unfair disadvantages, political activists were intimidated, and examples of military repression were frequent.
3. Recognizing the elections will put the United States at odds with most of the hemisphere."
Plan Colombia and Beyond then links to another interesting article in FP of all places by George Vickers of the Open Society Institute: "The Sham Elections in Honduras", which lays the basis for their 3 reasons.
These followed an article by Bill Van Auken at the WSWS "Washington endorses gunpoint election in Honduras"
Also worth checking out the Real News report "Honduras: Elections as coup laundering":
The fact is that now everybody in Latin America hates the U.S. again over this: "They really thought he was different," said Julia Sweig of the Council on Foreign Relations, referring to Latin America's view of Mr. Obama, adding, "But those hopes were dashed over the course of the summer."
Its also extremely interesting that this disgusting episode (yes, yet another in a long line of US crimes) shows that money makes policy not Obama: CIP again " Back in September, the Obama administration’s State Department declared that the U.S. government could not recognize the elections’ result under those circumstances.(after a coup ejected President Manuel Zelaya and a military-backed interim government took over in Tegucigalpa)"
Now after pressure from
The British and US press as usual are giving full credence to the golpistas' claims of a high turnout, as are some of the more gullible bloggers. There are others however, who report that there were problems with the computers just as they were tallying the votes. Hmm. We also read that "President Zelaya did a quick calculation and figured out that if the coup electoral authorities are telling the truth, i.e. that 1.7 million votes had been counted and this corresponded to 61.3 percent of the total voters, then a 100% turnout would have corresponded to 2.8 million voters, 600,000 more than were registered."
