National Party intransigence blocks 4th vote on Honduran Supreme Court

The National Party has lost 4 votes to elect its slate of proposed candidates for the Honduran Supreme Court, and yet, proposes to do a fifth vote today on the same slate of candidates.  At least for the moment, the two party system in Honduras is finally breaking down, and neither the Liberal, nor the National Party's are adapting to the existence of an opposition.

The National Party will try for a fifth time today to force the Honduran Congress to elect its slate of 7 candidates to the Supreme Court.  It negotiated this slate with its rival Liberal Party, but there's ample evidence in the vote tallies that Liberal Party members are defecting and not voting for the entire slate, especially if you believe that the bribed candidates from our previous post voted for the official slate of candidates. 

Last night in the fourth round of voting,  5 candidates hit 85 votes, one shy of the number of votes needed to elect the candidate to the court.   Two received 84 votes.  One received 83 votes.  So its clear that its not just the Libre, PAC, and PINU members holding up the election of justices, as the Congressional leadership wants us to believe. At least two of the people counting the votes last night:  Eduardo Coto and Jenny Murillo, have been named as having received bribes.

PAC has offered to negotiate a solution, but the National Party leadership continues to try and impose its will, with the help of the Liberal Party. At stake is which party, Liberal or National, controls the Supreme Court.  All of the current nominees are members of either the National or Liberal Parties.  None are members of PAC or Libre or PINU.  PAC is making the argument that justices should be selected not based on party affiliation, but rather on which would be best for the country.  So far the National Party doesn't agree.