The best antidote to the current confusion about who should govern Honduras is a free, fair election, and that appears to be what Honduras pulled off Sunday.

Local officials say the turnout was better than 60 percent of registered voters, which means that Hondurans ignored ousted President Manuel Zelaya’s calls to boycott the election, and international election observers called the balloting credible and free of intimidation.

The winner, Porfirio “Pepe” Lobo, described as a conservative rancher, narrowly lost the last election to Zelaya, who is currently holed up in the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa.

This would seem to - or should - settle the matter. But with the early exceptions of the United States and Colombia, other American nations,...