Will the president-elect of Honduras, Xiomara Castro (left), be able to take office, as planned, on Thursday, January 27? Nothing is less certain, while a serious political convulsion is shaking the country which, since this Sunday, January 23, has two presidents of Congress. The crisis, which had been simmering for weeks, erupted on Friday, during the stormy election of the Provisional Bureau of the unicameral Parliament – subsequently responsible for appointing its presidents and vice-presidents. A session that turned into a rat race.
On November 28, 2021, Xiomara Castro, at the head of a left-wing coalition, became the country’s most elected president. His Freedom and Refoundation Party (Libre) had obtained 50 seats in Congress (out of 128), and counted on its alliance with the El Salvador Party of Honduras (PSH, left), and some deputies from the Liberal Party (PL, center), to achieve the majority. To obtain these essential supports, Libre had promised the PSH the presidency of the Congress.
It was this agreement that was broken on Friday, when around twenty Libre deputies – since then expelled from the formation – announced that they would refuse to vote for the PSH deputy Luis Redondo, and that they would choose instead the one of them, Jorge Calix. “A counter-revolutionary betrayal against the party and against the Honduran people who defeated the nationalist narco-dictatorship on November 28”, was indignant Xiomara Castro, referring to the government of outgoing President Juan Orlando Hernandez (known as “JOH”), suspected of links with drug trafficking and organized crime.
This Sunday, January 23, Mr. Calix was thus appointed President of Congress by 79 deputies, gathered at the call of the Provisional Bureau in a private club 30 km from the capital, Tegucigalpa, for fear of violence in Parliament. Since the day before, the legislative palace was indeed surrounded by supporters of Libre, who came to demonstrate at the call of the elected president, herself present.
“We are on the threshold of a coup”
During this time, in the hemicycle, the deputies of Libre and those of PSH designated Luis Redondo as president of the Congress, immediately recognized by Xiomara Castro. Who, Mr. Calix or Mr. Redondo, is the real President of Congress? “The presidency of Calix is legal, but not legitimate, notes Otto Argueta, historian and doctor of political science. That of Luis Redondo is legitimate, because it has the support of the elected president, but it is not legal: the voting session was not convened by the Provisional Bureau. »
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