Tegucigalpa: Sunday`s election will likely accomplish what the plotters of a coup set out to do five months ago: end the political career of leftist president Manuel Zelaya and replace him with a more moderate leader from Honduras` establishment.
And Washington, which had vowed not to recognise the elections unless Zelaya was reinstated, now appears to have decided it has few options but to do exactly that.
"In the end, the coup won," said Heather Beckman, a Latin America analyst with the New York-based Eurasia Group. "It was a bad thing and it shouldn`t have happened, but in the end there wasn`t anything anyone could do."
Millions of poor Hondurans drew hope from Zelaya`s left-leaning policies in a nation long ruled by wealthy elite. But they now have no presidential candidate to represent them; the only one who backed Zelaya dropped out of the race last month with little support, saying his participation would condone the coup.
The leading candidates belong to the two main parties that voted overwhelmingly in Congress to support Zelaya`s ouster including the one that got him elected before turning against him.
Zelaya, flown into exile by soldiers on June 28, slipped back into the country three months later and has since been holed up at the Brazilian embassy. His term ends in January, and the Constitution bars him from running again.
PTI
