General elections underway in Honduras

*Lack of technological equipment, distribution of food and coercion of the vote are reported at the beginning of Election Day.

By Robert Diaz. Peninsula 360 Press [P360P].
Tegucigalpa, Honduras. - The Honduran Armed Forces are the ones in charge of delivering the Electoral Packets for the 2021 General Elections, and they are also the ones in charge of safeguarding them. 

However, a few hours before the election, there have been events such as the buying and selling of votes, as reported by the Electoral Youth Platform and the Center for the Study of Democracy (CESPAD), who reported that in the Froylán Turcios Industrial Institute in Tocoa, Colón, a place chosen as a Voting Center, people were discovered handing out votes to the voters. aids which in their words corresponded to payments from the governmental social program of "Chambas Comunitarias", however those involved were wearing caps with the legend "papi a la orden" in clear allusion to the candidate Nasry Asfura of the National Party (ruling party). Upon the arrival of the Electoral Observers, they took off their caps when they saw themselves being recorded. 

In the same way, the technological equipment with which the Transmission of Electoral Results (TREP) would be done did not arrive at several polling stations. Also, the location of the voting centers in the municipality of Cabañas, Copán was changed. 

People were detected with food parcels on the Camino de las Flores delivered by the National Party and in many of the tables that will be opened there is electoral propaganda around them that has not been removed.

In this regard, in the Saúl Bueso Castañeda School, a voting centre in the municipality of Santa Rita in the department of Copán, the secretariat of the Municipal Electoral Council prevented access by duly accredited Youth Electoral Platform Observers to the Voting Centre. 

Finally, most of the polling stations presented different impediments to better conduct the voting in their facilities according to the testimonies of the International Election Observers, the lack of light in some places, as well as insufficient space. 

The beginning of Election Day was overshadowed by the appearance of the body of a 30 year old man in the municipality of Ceiba and an electoral altercation in Santa Barbara where political party activists were outside the Polling Centers assisting and coercing the vote of the citizens.

Election day has begun in the midst of a rarefied climate due to the electoral violence that occurred in the state in the weeks prior to the election and the specter of abstentionism caused by this climate of insecurity, however, there is a copious participation of the Honduran people so far. 

You may be interested in: Vote Buying Reported in Honduras Hours Before Polls Open