A lot was at stake. The nation hasn’t had a truly democratic process to select a president since the election of former president Manuel Zelaya in 2005. Since Zelaya was kidnapped in a coup d’état on June 28, 2009, the coup regime has governed the nation with an iron hand through the period of thede facto regime and later a one-sided election organized by coup leaders and boycotted by democratic forces. As a result of four and a half years of coup rule, political polarization meets economic inequality in the nation to form a volatile mix of desperation and repression.