Film Festival at CENAC
Features Shorts “A Girl's Own Story,” “Passionless Moments,” “An exercise in discipline-Peel,” starting 6 p.m., Videoteca of the Museum of Contemporary Art and Design, CENAC. Free entrance.

UCR Symphony Orchestra in concert
8 p.m., National Theater.

Ukraine Chamber Orchestra
Performing works by J. Strauss, 8 p.m., Melico Salazar, Avenida 2, Calle Central. Info: 2207-2025, www.mundoticket.com.

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras – There's more on the line than just the presidency when Hondurans go to the voting polls this weekend.

On Nov. 29, five presidential candidates are set to square off in an election that is expected to boil down to two candidates, the conservative National Party's Porfirio “Pepe” Lobo, who has a commanding 16 percent lead in the polls, and center-left Liberal Party candidate Elvin Santos, who severed as vice-president under deposed President Manuel “Mel” Zelaya.

All of the candidates are running on platforms that call for improvements to education, health and safety in Honduras.

But the real issue heading into this weekend's elections is the future of Honduras' democracy, and whether or not the elections will be able to restore any credibility or legitimacy to the country's embattled political system.

Since the June 28 coup against Zelaya, Honduras has been entangled in Central America's worst political crisis in decades.

Many countries in the region have said they won't recognize the elections unless Zelaya is restored to the presidency before Sunday. Congress announced last week it will vote on the ousted president's temporary restitution on Dec. 2 – a move Zelaya rejects as a violation of the agreement he signed earlier this month with de facto President Roberto Micheletti.

Still, many Hondurans are hoping a strong turnout at the polls will help bring constitutional order back to their country, while winning back recognition and cooperation from the international community.

A Cid-Gallup poll published last month showed that 73 percent of Hondurans hope the elections will be the solution to the five-month-old political crisis.

But as election day approaches, that now looks like tall order, according to Roberto Reyes, spokesman for the Supreme Electoral Tribunal. Voter turnout has declined over the last decade, with just 56 percent of the country's 4 million eligible voters casting ballots in the 2005 elections, Reyes said.

Sunday's voter turnout could be much less, as Zelaya's supporters call for a national boycott of the elections.

Reyes said the presidential election has turned into a fight for the hearts and minds of Hondurans – Micheletti supporters insist the elections will prove the democratic system still works in their country, while Zelaya's supports insist the whole thing is a sham.

Ever since the coup, Reyes said, there's been an ideological war waged in the streets.

“On the day of elections, we'll see who wins the battle,” the electoral spokesman said.

See the Nov. 27 print or digital edition of The Nica Times, a weekly, Nicaragua-based publication of The Tico Times, for more on this story.

Costa Rican President Oscar Arias has called for a suspension of a meeting between heads of state within the Central American Integration System (SICA), which was originally scheduled for Dec. 8 and 9.

According to a memorandum released by the Foreign Ministry on Tuesday, Arias cancelled “because of the complications presented in the nature of the pro tempore presidency... and the difficulty of the preparatory work.”

During Arias' half-year term as head of SICA, he has only called one regional meeting, and that was under the guise of the 11th Tuxtla Summit in July. According to SICA's Web site, it's been the longest the Central American presidents have gone without meeting since 1995.

The Costa Rican Foreign Ministry didn't go any further in explaining “complications,” yet analysts suspect it has some to do with the Honduran crisis and rejection of a court ruling involving SICA's judicial arm, the Central American Court of Justice.

Calling the court “pathetic” and “irresponsible,” Foreign Minister Bruno Stagno said his country never ratified the terms of the court and therefore would not recognize its ruling.

The rotating presidency passes to Panama at the beginning of the new year.

Luciana Sánchez doesn't want a pony for Christmas. The 9-year-old would rather her world's leaders clean the planet.

“It's a picture for the world to become a better place,” the Sabana Larga fourth-grader said after she handed her painting of the world held in black, white and amber colored hands, capped with a bourgeoning green tree, to Britain's ambassador to Costa Rica, Tom Kennedy.

Luciana was one of dozens of Costa Rican schoolchildren who delivered a visual and verbal message to the Costa Rica's international representatives on Tuesday. She participated in Cartas por Cambio (Letters for Change), a grassroots initiative that inspired tens of thousands grade school and high school students across the nation to write to presidents, prime ministers and chancellors around the globe and ask them to reduce pollution and take action against global warming.

Around 40,000 students wrote letters to heads of state from more 60 countries, the project's leader, Roberto Jiménez, estimates. The letters, written over the past couple of months, were piled into boxes and tagged with each nation's flag.

Each letter began with the students name, age and school. The children listed their concerns about climate change, examples of improvements that can be made and commitments they will each make, hoping that governments will follow along.

At InBio park Tuesday, less than three weeks away from the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, several of the young authors lined up to deliver their pleas to ambassadors and present them with of thousands other cards from their fellow learners who could not attend.

The diplomats promised to take the requests to their bosses.

“We will certainly be sure that Prime Minister (Patrick) Manning gets this,” said Sandra Honoré, the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago's ambassador to Costa Rica, as she lifted a box filled to the brim with decorated letters and drawings.

Diplomats from Latin American countries such as Colombia and Venezuela and envoys from countries as far away as Japan each carried a box out of the park with the same guarantee. U.S. President Barack Obama was one of the children's favorites to whom to address their letters, and will receive three boxes of cards this holiday season.

And while decision makers, politicians and emissaries wandered to the refreshment table for coffee, Luciana twisted her torso from side to side, her dark hair swaying. With her hands clutched behind her back and a shy smile on her face, she said, “If we don't take care of our planet the people that live on it are going to be in big trouble. That's not good for my friends and my family and our future.”

See the Nov. 27 print or digital edition for more on this story.