Prospera-dump

We got a response: https://twitter.com/NickDranias/status/1681448423344734216

2/7 The first hint that most Hondurans saw through the anti-ZEDE astroturfing came from Television polling in 2021. That polling indicated ~80% of Hondurans believed the opposition to ZEDEs was purely political.

Issue is I don't know much about Honduran television polls.

3/7 Later, between January and February 2022, Gallup did a rare scientific post-election poll of 1222 Honduran citizens with a 95% confidence level (+/-2.8%) to assess what was really on their mind regarding ZEDEs.

4/7 That polling found that only 3% cited opposition to ZEDEs as driving the vote for Xiomara Castro, negligible enough to be within the margin of error itself. It was around the same number of Hondurans (2%) who voted "to promote socialism in Honduras."

But this was asking for the main factor, so that doesn't mean they were saying people aren't opposed to ZEDEs, only that people don't think it's the main thing.

5/7 Around the same time, the 3% number was corroborated by a Libre-sympathetic poll, in which only 3.1% of respondents cited ZEDEs as the main damage done by the prior administration. It is a fair inference that Anti-ZEDE sentiment possessed 3% of the Honduran electorate.

Same problem as before.

6/7 So what did Hondurans really think about ZEDEs? At supermajority levels consistent with the TV polling cited at the beginning, only now at a 95% confidence level, Hondurans overwhelmingly emphasized the need for protecting foreign investment & protecting ZEDE jobs.

Here, they compared things like whether the administration should prioritize "generating jobs" over "repealing or reforming ZEDE law". I suppose the purpose of doing this sort of forced-choice situation is to prevent people from going "I want everything good but I don't want anything bad in order to achieve it". Which on the one hand is reasonable for pragmatic purposes as you can't have good stuff without costs. But on the other hand, isn't part of Hondura's problem that people keep going "We want everything good but not anything bad"?

7/7 The anti-ZEDE "movement" in Honduras is a mythological creature. It was concocted by foreign and domestic ideologues and political manipulators during an election season as the preferred banner of the tiny fringe of those who already favored radical political goals.

I don't understand how anti-ZEDE movements makes for a good banner for political manipulation if it is so unpopular. I think the "We want everything good but not anything bad" model works better.

In addition to introducing ZEDE law, Porfirio Lobo Sosa banned the morning-after pill. His wife was incarcerated for stealing $4 million from the state.

It needs to be mentioned that Prospera is still operating despite this fact, arguing about 50 years guaranteed by the legal stability agreement. The zone was not shut down in practice, the conflict about repeal is legal in nature, perhaps it may result in more court cases.

Xiomara Castro is in conflict with the courts:

Xiomara Castro inherited a deeply corrupt state apparatus, leading her to choose to extradite her predecessor Juan Orlando Hernández to the United States for his links to drug trafficking, rather than hand him over to the Honduran justice system. Her government asked for UN help in setting up an international commission to fight corruption.

Xiomara Castro made Honduras cut ties with Taiwan and establish a relationship with China.

In 2017, supposedly this happened:

The Alliance won the election in the pre-election polls, and led in the preliminary results. However, a general blackout interrupted the publication of the count for 36 hours; when it was restarted, the trend was reversed and President Juan Orlando Hernández was re-elected, leading to accusations of fraud. The ensuing demonstrations were suppressed by the government, leaving 23 people dead, hundreds injured and more than 1,350 detained.