Nicaragua Network on Zelaya

It is odd that the article would reference something that is so obviously false, namely the mass reduction of "school fees". Public primary school was free under Zelaya's predecessor, and his predecessor, and his predecessor. It is now no longer free in many parts of the country. If he helped eliminate fees, then all he did was neutralize a fee-system he created. Problem is what became of the original funding, and what became of the monies from the fees, and what are they doing with the added funds used to cover the fees they instituted, which previous administrations never needed. As two real-world examples: I have property outside San Marcos de Colon (Comelito, on the quarry backroad that gets you to Somoto -and a decent hospital- if need be, etc.); my nephews live there. Education there has been free for as long as anyone can remember. As it is a poor area, the uniform codes are not enforced (a set uniform exists, but pants close to blue and shirt close to white gets you in), too. It ceased to be free under Zelaya. There is a now a matriculation fee, some other occasional mystery fee, and an added tech-fee if that school has a computer (not a computer for everyone, just one). This started under Zelaya and has not gone away in 2008 or 2009. In Tegus where I have an apartment, most regional public schools now have similar fees (I have nieces and nephews in these schools, too); they never had these fees before, but have had them under Zelaya, as recently as 5/09 and if the schools reopen post-coup they may or may not still have them. I am not sure what the NicaNet article is about, and El Heraldo may have listed the amount from Zelaya's proposed budget, but spreadsheets and expenditures and results are different things; he is considered by many here to be the anti-education President, not the reverse. Teachers have routinely striked against Zelaya over the last 2.5 years. Based on this and many others factors it is unclear how he could be the education President to the poor in any reasonably objective assessment.

The real problem with accounts of Zelaya's work for the poor (including his own) is that promises and expenditures do not match reality. This is somewhat common in all of C.A. (a portion of funds always seem not to make to the final project, to put it nicely), and in itself is not a rejection of, nor unique criticism of, Zelaya. But -and this is key- he has had great success "in theory", and he has had great success "on paper", but not necessarily with the actual people involved. In other words, money was allotted for the things said; money was appropriated and was spent or is now gone, but there is usually little or effect since the money did not go where intended. Zelaya's support, were it not for fraud and incompetence on the part of his people, might be good right now. It is not policy alone that lead to his downfall, but implementation and the lack of measurable results.

It is true Zelaya proposed a small fortune for education. But, his proposals and later analyses included countless children who already received free education, and there was never an explanation as to where those corresponding funds really went. Same for vaccinations. Most children already received them (less rotavirus) free anyway, and the funds allotted for those who didn't so grossly exceeded true cost (would have been cheaper to bus everyone of them to the capital for a weekend stay and some shots) as to be outright fraud of the highest level. Hondurans have never considered vaccinations a result of nor due to communist policies. Across parties they have a long history of trying to pay for basic early life health care, and the Liberal party and Zelaya have no special claim to fame here.

Hospitals have not prospered under Zelaya. Arguably, they are worse off now than any time since Hurricane Mitch. They are routinely short basic necessities that were on hand under previous administrations. What they do have is more likely the result of foreign aid than Zelaya (things were so bad in 2007-2008 that it was even easier to get aid to make up for poor government funding). At one embarrassing point the main public hospital in the capital city lacked a single functioning ambulance (the one from the 1970's finally died). After watching Zelaya's reluctance/incompetence to solve the matter for nearly a year, the Red Cross stepped in gave them one. In fact, public hospital employees have had pre-Coup strikes against Zelaya. And, throughout parts of his wage-increase-help-the-poor programs, he didn't even pay many public employees, including many hospital staff (this is one unreported reason why many public employees are not pro-Zelaya), and when he did pay them it often wasn't at his own new minimum wage level.

Zelaya's administration (and I suspect he actually believes the reports he is given) has never accurately measured poverty nor its reduction. His people assume that if you increase the minimum wage enough, then a certain number of people will no longer be poor. But, the concept, used in isolation, ignores reality. The wage doesn't apply to day workers, many employers have never paid the minimum salary regardless of what it was, there is much higher unemployment now, and most poor Hondurans live three-generations to a house. Pooled income is the rule. If 4 of the 13 people in the house on paper earn L3k but their employer only really pays L2k, and one earns a real L3k, and one did work on the side for L1.5k, their household income was L12.5k. Raising the minimum salary to L5k doesn't turn that household income into a real L30k, especially when you consider 1 or more of the 5 true wage-earners is likely now unemployed, and the side work may have vanished. The problem with the poverty-income-salary arguments is that they only measure select people, individually, and they do not take into count underpayment, corruption, nor new unemployment data.

The government did bring in new electricity in man places. But, doing so in the fashion allowed created even more "theft" than there usually is with electrical connections. Illegal use, fraud, and non-payment are currently at record levels - and they haven't any money to fix the problem - so it quickly helps amass debt. Honduras may or may not have substantially increased grain reserves. If they are accurate, then his administration would have a hard time explaining why Honduran food is so expensive while it keeps getting exported, often so just compared to neighboring countries that haven't increased production.

Free breakfasts, vaccinations, school fees and food production increases are not the cause of the coup. The devil is in the details and much to their possible demise, the Zelaya administration doesn't like to deal with details, and fiscal responsibility is considered a "detail" with many of the people he surrounded himself with. Many Liberals and many quasi-socialists in Honduras no longer support Zelaya, not because they don't care about kids and health and food, but because they saw the money go out and then never saw the results. When they hear of all his successes in the world press, many just shake their heads and disbelieve/despise him even more (as of 2009 people are less likely to blame his staff and instead blame him directly).