Honduran politicians have also been involved in corruption and drug trafficking cases, including President Juan Orlando Hernández.
This Wednesday it was reported that at least 31 politically motivated murders in the last year have stained the campaign for the general elections in Honduras, which will take place on Sunday, November 28. This adds more controversy to these elections already peppered by accusations of corruption and drug trafficking, with cases reaching even the current president, Juan Orlando Hernández.
Francisco Gaitán, 61, mayor and candidate for reelection in the city of Cantarranas, some 20 km east of Tegucigalpa, was one of the latest victims. He was shot and then shot to the ground by a gunman while participating in a political rally.
The mayor’s assassination “is not for anything other than political zeal. The man who shot him told him: ‘You’ve come this far, Paco Gaitán,’ ”said the deputy mayor, Marco Guzmán, who will replace him in the candidacy.
The widely popular Gaitán was seeking his fifth consecutive reelection. He belonged to the Liberal Party (PL), an opposition group whose leader, Yani Rosenthal, wants to be president after having served a three-year sentence in the United States for laundering assets from drug trafficking.
One of the favorites to succeed President Hernández is the current mayor of Tegucigalpa, Nasry Asfura, of the ruling and conservative National Party (PN, right), who is under investigation for embezzling funds from the capital.
His closest opponent, Xiomara Castro, is the proposal of the Free Party (PL, left). She is the wife of the ousted former president Manuel Zelaya (2006-2009), whom a drug lord claimed to have bribed in exchange for “putting a relative as Minister of Security”, something that did not happen.
At the beginning of the month, the presidential candidate Santos Rodríguez was arrested for drug trafficking and homicides.
Even President Hernández himself has been singled out by a prosecutor in New York as an accomplice in drug trafficking. For this crime, his brother, Juan Antonio (Tony) Hernández, is imprisoned and sentenced to life imprisonment in the United States. They all deny the charges.
The executioner of the Gaitán crime was captured by the police. Hundreds took to the streets to protest and attended the wake.
“Adding the four (recent murders), there are 31 dead” since December 23, 2020, because of the “polarized climate, with leaders generating messages of violence” instead of proposals on solving the country’s problems, he said. to AFP the director of the Observatory of Violence of the National University, Migdonia Ayestas.
Last Saturday Elvir Casaña, an activist from the Libre party, was assassinated in Santa Bárbara, northwest, after participating in a proselytizing activity.
In the 2017 elections “there were twelve homicides that were committed against political actors,” said Ayestas.
“There is no vote worth a drop of blood from any Honduran brother,” Cardinal Óscar Rodríguez said in a recent homily.
“Fear is being instilled in society: ‘We better not go out to vote because there will be violence’; no, that would also be complicit in indifference ”, he lamented.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Honduras (Oacnudh) said it observes “with concern the violent deaths in the electoral context.”
He called for “holding peaceful elections with respect for human rights” and condemned “acts of electoral violence that affect the right to political participation.”
“Violence has no place in democracy,” the Observer Mission of the Organization of American States (OAS) also demanded in a statement.
“It also hopes that the authorities move forward with speed in the investigation of these unacceptable acts and bring those responsible to justice,” he added.
Clash of left and right
The main confrontation occurs between the right-wing ruling party, from Asfura, the favorite in the race; and the left, which continues to add alliances and threatens its permanence. Two candidates with fewer options have already yielded their support to Xiomara Castro.
The PN complains of a campaign “of hatred” of the alliance because Castro proclaims that Asfura means the continuity of Juan Orlando Hernández, of corruption and drug trafficking.
The PN, for its part, tries to discredit Libre by marching against “communism.” He criticizes Zelaya for his links with the Venezuela of the late Hugo Chávez and the current president, Nicolás Maduro, elements that a civil-military alliance used to overthrow him in 2009.
In his conservative speech, the PN also disqualifies Libre for his proposal to legalize abortion and “kill children.”
In addition to president, in the elections 3 vice presidents, 128 deputies (with alternates), 20 deputies to the Central American Parliament (Parlacen) and 298 mayors will be chosen.
Hernández ends his second four-year term on January 27, 2022. His re-election in 2017 was marked by accusations of a fraud that favored him, amid protests that left about thirty people dead. (I)
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