After a sequence of troubled years, marked by a coup d’état, an election with accusations of fraud and intense street protests, the Hondurans will go to the polls this Sunday (28) to name the successor of Juan Orlando Hernández. The rightist says goodbye to his second term in the midst of a humanitarian, public security, economic and health crisis.
Although polls in the country have no record of reliability and show large differences in numbers, depending on the institute, the main surveys indicate the leadership of leftist Xiomara Castro de Zelaya (Libertad y Refundación) over the governing Nasry Asfura (National Party). According to data from Cespad (Centre for Democracy Studies), Xiomara would have 38% of voting intentions, against 21% for Asfura. Entrepreneur Yani Rosenthal comes in third with a distant 3%.
The election will elect, in addition to who will command the country until January 2026 —in Honduras, there is no second round— 128 deputies to Congress and 298 mayors.
Xiomara is married to former president Manuel Zelaya (2006-2009), deposed by a coup d’état — before leaving the country, in January 2010, he spent four months at the embassy of Brazil, at the time ruled by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT). His candidacy challenges the bipartisanship that has been dominating Honduran politics, taken by the country’s main parties, Liberal and National.
She gained national prominence by publicly defending her husband removed from power and adopted as a campaign banner social spending plans similar to those he had implemented to fight poverty, in addition to fighting corruption.
Zelaya returned to the country in 2011, when he founded Libertad y Refundación, and has been actively participating in the women’s campaign. The couple has ties to Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro, from whom he draws inspiration for projects against inequality — Chavismo supported the Honduran when he was deposed and campaigned for the return of his power. It is also linked to unions and student movements and is very popular in rural areas.
Xiomara says that, if elected, she will promote a commercial approach with China, propose a new Constituent Assembly (something her husband also defended), implement a judicial reform and suggest the creation of a commission to investigate cases of corruption in the country, with the support of the United Nations.
Asfura, in turn, has the challenge of trying to get elected as the political heir of a president worn down by successive crises and a criminal indictment. Hernández is accused of drug trafficking by the Americans and has a brother, Juan Antonio “Tony” Hernández, who has been imprisoned in the United States since 2019.
The rightist is currently mayor of Tegucigalpa, the country’s capital, and has support from business, the military and evangelicals. He too, however, faces a lawsuit in court, accused of embezzling public funds that belonged to the city.
Rosenthal, with little chance, adopts a pro-market and liberal policy also in customs, defending advances in civil rights legislation, such as the legalization of abortion, same-sex marriage and drugs.
Honduras is one of the poorest countries in the Americas, with 59% of the population below the poverty line and 36.2% indigent. The country is also part of the so-called Northern Triangle, alongside Guatemala and El Salvador, where the performance of the “maras” (criminal factions) is intense. The country has a homicide rate of 38 per 100,000 inhabitants — in Brazil, the rate is 23.6 per 100,000.
Out of fear of violence, extortion by the “maras” and having their children recruited by organized crime, citizens of the country have been migrating en masse in recent years, many of them seeking to enter the US illegally.
Humanitarian, security and economic crises, political tension and devastating hurricanes have increased queues in migration caravans. According to the United Nations, between 2009 and 2017, the search for Hondurans for asylum in the US rose from 850 to 41,468. Between October 2020 and September 2021 alone, 43,000 were detained at the American border.
Covid has aggravated the humanitarian crisis. With the official number of just over 10,000 dead since the start of the pandemic, the country is moving slowly in terms of vaccination, with 39% of the population taking both doses.
In 2017, the opponent Salvador Nasralla, famous TV presenter and then presidential candidate, came out ahead in counting the votes. After a few days of investigation, however, the process was interrupted, due to alleged technical failures. When the process was resumed, Hernández was 23 points ahead.
The opposition and its supporters took to the streets in protest, alleging fraud. The OAS (Organization of American States) recommended that the election be repeated, but the request was ignored. There was brutal repression against the movement, with a toll of 23 dead. Nasralla announced support for Ximara in this year’s election.
JOH’s intentions, as the president is known, after the election are not clear. If Asfura wins, he could try to avoid extradition to the US. As surveys indicate that this path may not materialize, the representative has articulated alternative plans.
Recently, he sought to reconnect with Daniel Ortega, Nicaragua’s dictator, until then his political rival. The local media believes that this could be a strategy for him to seek asylum in the country and, thus, avoid having to answer for crimes in the country where thousands of Hondurans are trying to enter, illegally.
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