An eventful weekend is underway in Latin America.  In Uruguay, a former Marxist guerilla looks poised to capture that country's presidency in national elections.  In Brazil, Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is meeting with the rising superpower's president, Luis Inacio Lula da Silva.  In Colombia, a former military general accused of sponsoring death squad paramilitary activity was convicted of his crimes.  And in Ecuador, regional leaders gathered for a UNASUR summit to try and cool increasingly hot-headedness between Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and the Colombian leadership in Bogota. 

But by far, the most important event unfolding this weekend is the national election in Honduras.  Following the coup that pushed president Manuel Zelaya from power at the start of summer, the country's politics has experienced too many ups and downs to recount.  But now it seems that at least the first phase of the saga will come to a close as Hondurans go to the polls on Sunday to pick a new president.  While the rest of the world (save the ultra right government in Panama) has refused to accept the election, the United States has unfortunately signaled that it will recognize the results, arguing that it is satisfied that the ground has been set for a free and fair contest. 

The Barack Obama administration is dead wrong: the elections are neither free nor fair, and not should be recognized as legitimate. 

The evidence is overwhelming.  In the first place, the intimidating presence of the Honduran military in the electoral process has sent a clear message to voters about the preferences of the powers that be.  According to the Washington Office on Latin America,

The de-facto Micheletti government has very publicly involved the armed forces in distributing electoral material and "safeguarding" the electoral process, which is widely reported in the media. Decree PCM-M-029-2009 of November 21st "places the armed forces at the disposition of the Supreme Electoral Council from one month prior to the elections to their conclusion," in order to "guarantee the free exercise of the right to vote, the custody, transport and monitoring of electoral material and other aspects to secure the process," and authorizes the activation of 5,000 reservists, given "the growing internal threats of groups that aim to destabilize the state." In addition to these transport, security and monitoring duties, soldiers have been reported to be distributing leaflets on public buses urging people to vote. 

The recent violent repression of dissent by the country's armed forces (including widespread accusations of human rights abuses) renders their role menacing in this process, and will likely intimidate some voters into staying home on Sunday. 

Second, the government has selectively forced a media blackout throughout the country on outlets unsympathetic to the coup crew.  Since the Micheletti regime forcibly took power in late June, it has ordered the shut-down, occupation, and censorship of numerous opposition media attempting to broadcast news of the de facto government's actions.  According to Reuters, the most recent example occurred this past week when the government scrambled Station 36's television broadcast signal, overriding it with old cowboy flicks before killing the signal entirely.  The move prompted action by American representative Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), who, on a visit to the embattled country, angrily pointed out that the government had imposed "a complete violation of freedom of the press."  For its part, a Micheletti spokesman shrugged his shoulders, saying as far as he knew, there had been no express "order for any media to be blocked or taken off air."

Third, many of the politicians standing for office have withdrawn their candidacies in protest.  Throughout the country, hundreds of Honduran political hopefuls have abandoned their quests for office, apparently privileging their respect for democratic order over personal ambition.  Most surprisingly, Carlos Reyes-an independent candidate for president and a popular figure nation-wide-has taken his name off the ballot, thereby preventing what could have been an electoral outcome in his favor on Sunday.  The fact that tens of thousands of Honduran voters have been stripped of their preferred candidates does not point in the direction of a free and fair outcome. 

And let's not forget the foolish former president, Zelaya, who remains holed up in the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa.  No matter what one thinks of his political tactics or personal ambitions, Zelaya was clearly ejected from power by an indefensible coup and later robbed of his rightful reinstatement. The fact that he remains trapped in the embassy under threat of arrest for treason indicates the degree to which the political environment in Honduras is far from free and under control. It is hard to imagine any other country claiming normalcy with a similar situation continuing to drag on without any sense of imminent resolution. 

Apparently a consensus has developed in Washington, succinctly expressed by Edward Schumacher-Matos, that as long as no large-scale violence takes place on Sunday, it's best to just give the coup government a free pass on its undemocratic actions in the name of stability.  Eventually, the logic goes, "the rest of the world will come around to Washington's view." 

But this view is as misplaced as it is politically stupid.  Recognizing the elections might slap a Bandaid on the deep political divisions and dysfunction that have been ruining Honduras, but as violence on both sides recently demonstrates, going to the polls will not solve them.  Making matters worse, the Obama administration has abdicated any pretense of good faith in the eyes of its regional partners.  Far from buying into Obama's vision of a post-Bush era of productive multilateral engagement between Washington and its southern neighbors, White House willingness to tolerate a murderous coup has Latin leaders worried that they're about to be taken on a trip back into the future.