Like several countries in the region, Honduras has been experiencing a political and social crisis for several years and this Sunday its citizens will try to find a way out of their problems in the general elections, in which they will have to elect their next president, who will replace Juan. Orlando Hernández, linked to several cases of corruption and drug trafficking.
The problems generated in 2009 by the coup against then-President Manuel Zelaya deepened the structural problems and since then politics has been very agitated.
Since the return to democracy in 1980, the country has not been able to overcome this episode that also broke the bipartisanship of the National Party (currently in power) and the Liberal Party, of which the Libertad y Refundación Party (better known as the Free Party), where the disenchanted went after what happened with Zelaya.
On this occasion, almost 5.2 million people will elect, in addition to president, to Parliament, 298 municipal mayors and 20 deputies representing Honduras in the Central American Parliament. Those voters will vote at 18,293 polls.
“In Honduras we are going to the 12th election since 1980. At a very critical time, because there had never been a political party that had three consecutive presidential terms … (The Free Party) in elections of 2013 and 2017, they practically stole their elections … but the most significant was that of 2017 -when Hernández was re-elected and the popular television presenter Salvador Nasrala lost- ”, comments Julio Navarro, a Honduran political analyst.
Until May Nasrala, who accused Hernández of stealing the presidency from him in 2017, was the main opposition figure, but he was losing support and decided to support former first lady Xiomara Castro de Zelaya.
Navarro adds that there are fourteen candidates in the race, but there are three competing: Castro, who is for the Libertad y Refundación party, who became a political figure after the coup against her husband; Nasry Asfura, who is known as Daddy to order and he is the mayor of Tegucigalpa -the country’s capital- since 2014, who goes for the ruling party (National Party); and Yani Rosenthal Hidalgo, for the Liberal party, who was imprisoned for money laundering in the United States.
Among the rest of the candidates there is also an independent one who is a military man who captured the helicopter in which the president’s brother was walking, who is now imprisoned in New York. For this action they dismissed him and less than a month ago he was arrested. There is also the person who was the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces when the 2009 coup occurred, Romeo Vásquez Velásquez.
“Right now there is a huge rejection of the National Party or Government Party, rejection of the President of the Republic. But this party has an extremely large social welfare network. In the middle of the electoral campaign, they are distributing sovereign bonds where they give people 300, 200, 100 dollars in aid to all those people who are tributaries of the party. So with that they keep them still really fighting for the first place. So far, the polls who favor Xiomara Castro de Zelaya, but still the government party, even with all the rejection that exists, continues to be a competitive party, ”says Navarro.
He already foresees that none of the three main parties will have a majority in Congress, so there will be negotiations. Something more than necessary in a society that has suffered 12 years of great political confrontation.
Another point that Navarro cites is that the United States is looking more to Honduras and wants to recover that ally that on many occasions was its main connection with Central America, especially now. Therefore, with pragmatism it will support the government that comes out of this election.
Julieta Castellanos, a sociologist and former rector of the National University of Honduras, comments that the elections are marked by complexity and uncertainty, in the midst of fragile governance because there is no second round, but whoever is simply the most voted wins the election. That has made the presidents, after the bipartisanship ended, win with around 35%, that is, with the opposition of more than 60%.
She explains that it must also be taken into account that in Honduras the political parties operate the entire electoral process, since the head of the Electoral Council is made up of representatives of the three main parties, as well as the polling stations.
Castellanos also mentions that electoral violence has been present in the campaign and this is the election with the most assassinated candidates.
Among the many difficulties, the uncertainty, the hope of many and the fear of others that there will be post-election violence, there is a glimpse of relative peace and the confidence of those who believe that Sunday will be decisive to regain stability in the country, according to EFE.
The hope of Hondurans is based on having clean elections, in a country that has also been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic that began to spread in March 2020, and the ravages caused by storms Eta and Iota, in November of that same year. (I)
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