A Golden Ticket For Honduras
Golden Tickets and Voter Ballots for Honduras' Future
Honduran Elections 2013
With elections rapidly approaching, the people of Honduras have an important decision to make, which will affect not only the next four years, but also set the direction for the nation’s future. A poor, corrupt, and extremely unsafe country, it would be easy to assume that what the people of Honduras need is a strong-armed leader to battle the insecurity and relentless abuse of power. And yet, this assumption would be wrong.
International polls call the upcoming Honduran election a close race between traditional National and Liberal party leaders Juan Orlando Hernandez and Mauricio Villeda respectively; as well as the newly introduced Libre, fronted by candidate Xiomara Castro de Zelaya. When comparing these three candidates, one would do well to remember the classic children’s book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl.
As in Dahl’s book, National Party leader Hernandez and Libre nominee Castro have spent much of their campaign bickering between each other. In fact, in the recent campaign closure, a group of Castro’s followers physically attacked a bus full of Hernandez’s supporters. Hernandez, eerily reminiscent of a gluttonous Augustus Gloop, and frequently demonstrating the attitude of spoiled Veruca Salt, has repeatedly mentioned he will do anything and everything he has to do to win. Of these three candidates, Hernandez has the toughest personality. His campaign promises include job creation and an improvement on the country’s overall safety. However, Hernandez is serving his term as President of Congress, one of the most powerful and influential positions in the country’s most important legislative body. Therefore, he has had ample opportunity to address the issues prevalent in the country. The lack of results begs the question of what exactly would be different if he were president? More importantly, if his true motives were to the benefit of the country, then why did his arguably more important position, yield such little results?
Libre’s Xiomara Castro, equally gluttonous, and also having had an influential position as the first lady of infamous and forcibly removed Mel Zelaya’s government, failed to push an agenda of social change and good values. Her lack of education, experience, and knowledge of the basic areas needed for running a country, such as economics, policy-making, and international relations, are indicative of a lack of interest in her earlier years as first lady. One might even say that this disinterest goes further back, given that Castro never even finished high school. Like Dahl’s Mike Teavee, who spent most of his time more concerned with an alternate reality provided by television, Castro spent her time as first lady travelling abroad with her large entourage, on state funds, of course. Teavee’s obsession with gangsters and guns is reflective of the frequent associations and accusations of the Zelaya-Castro family and government colliding with infamous drug lords, and even South America’s FARC. Their failure to address real economic issues, bringing external and internal debt to a record high, and loss of Poverty Reduction funds due to lack of transparency, already detrimentally affected the country once. Putting a different flag up, starting a new party, calling themselves a new name does not erase their history as poor and corrupt leaders, particularly when many of the faces alongside the couple are the same as those in 2005-2009. And once they return, as Mr. Wonka told Charlie, “they'll be completely restored to their normal, terrible old selves” (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory). Are these the people that Hondurans want to trust with the absolute empowerment that comes with a constituent assembly? And with the country’s epidemic of corruption, can any group really be trusted with such a task at all?
Augustus Gloop, Veruca Salt, and Mike Teavee all self-destructed, and ultimately, Willy Wonka saw that the only person worthy of inheriting his factory was Charlie Bucket. Charlie’s characteristics were humility and nobility. And just like Charlie, the Liberal Party’s candidate Mauricio Villeda, an educated lawyer by trade, is nationally recognized as an honest person, untainted, and unafraid to stand firm in a chocolate river of sell-outs. He ignores labels, like “left” or “right,” and shifts the attention back to the issues prevalent in Honduras, such as corruption, extreme poverty, and violence.
Honduras doesn’t need a leader hell-bent on having it his way, or a brand new constitution and form of government led by an unqualified former first lady. What Honduras needs is an oompa loompa cleaning crew, dedicated, hard working, and ready to use their talents to create opportunities for others to enjoy. They need an honest leader, capable of dialogue, and one who can lead and inspire those working around him to stop being so gluttonous. Hondurans need to know that there is hope for honesty and change that results in positive, tangible, results. If the people of Honduras elect nobility, ethics, and integrity, over all of the colors, labels and noise being made by other parties, then the country will have the opportunity to discover a better standard it can hold its future leaders to.
Self-destructing candidates will take the country with them. So if Hondurans want better, if they’re tired of the desperation that comes with extreme poverty and unemployment; if they’re afraid to go out at night due to the violence; if value a candidate who is willing to make personal sacrifices so that others may have opportunities; then citizens must lend their vote to the Liberal Party. Honduras needs a Charlie with a golden ticket to take it over. Mauricio Villeda is it.
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