Left-wing candidate Xiomara Castro (Freedom and Refoundation Party, Libre, left) takes the advantage for the presidency of Honduras against the dauphin of the outgoing right-wing president, in a country plagued by violence from drug traffickers, who have spread their corruption up to the highest state level.
Voter participation was established at the level “Historical” of 62%, announced Sunday, November 28 evening, the National Electoral Council (CNE), giving the first partial results.
With the votes of 16% of polling stations counted, Xiomara Castro, wife of former President Manuel Zelaya, overthrown in 2009 by a coup, obtained more than 53% of the vote, while his right-wing opponent, Nasry Asfura, only gets 34%. The CNE, however, insisted on the provisional nature of these results and urged the candidates and voters to wait for the final results. The threat of fraud and unrest hangs over the ballot and its count.
42,000 soldiers and police officers mobilized
“They will try to provoke the people. We know there is despair, especially among those who have governed for twelve years ”, warned Mme Castro after voting, when at least 31 people were killed during the campaign. The candidate of the ruling party, for his part, pledged to respect the result of the vote and demanded that “Not a drop of blood”. The authorities mobilized 42,000 soldiers and police to monitor the 5,755 polling stations in the country and ward off possible disturbances.
In addition to their president, voters had to elect deputies and mayors. Honduras has been ruled for more than ten years by the National Party (PN), under the rule of Juan Orlando Hernandez, suspected by the United States of being involved in drug trafficking.
Sensing the tide, the PN had hardened the tone of its campaign, calling the leader of Libre de “Communist” and vilifying his proposals to legalize abortion and same-sex marriage.
In 2013, Mr. Hernandez had beaten by a short header Mme Castro and then disregarded the Constitution to run for a second term in 2017. His questionable re-election on the wire against television star Salvador Nasralla had unleashed violent protests.
More riots would not do Washington, who “Wants to avoid a repetition of [l’élection] of 2017 and an increase in migratory pressure ”, says Michael Shifter, president of the Inter-American Dialogue think tank.
Violence and misery
Tens of thousands of Hondurans try to join each year the million of their compatriots who fled violence and misery, the overwhelming majority in the United States. More than half of the ten million inhabitants live below the poverty line, which the pandemic due to the coronavirus has only accentuated. Unemployment has almost doubled in one year, from 5.7% in 2019 to 10.9% in 2020.
With a homicide rate of 37.6 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2020, Honduras is also one of the most dangerous countries in the world, outside conflict zones.
In the past two years, Parliament has dissolved an anti-corruption commission and adopted a new penal code providing lower penalties for corruption or drug trafficking. Many parliamentarians were targeted by the investigations of this commission.
Drug traffickers detained in the United States have implicated President Hernandez, whose brother, Tony, has been sentenced by a US federal court to life in prison for his involvement in the trafficking of 185 tons of cocaine.