Former first lady Xiomara Castro will have a tough job on her hands once her expected election victory as Honduras's first woman president is confirmed (AFP/LUIS ACOSTA)
Russell Contreras
RussContreras
Leftist opposition candidate Xiomara Castro claimed victory in Honduras’ presidential election Sunday, setting up a showdown with the ruling conservative National Party which could end their 12 years in power www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-11-28/both-political-parties-claim-victory-in-honduras-presidential-vote pic.twitter.com/qxr4hxj9ok
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Michael Reid
michaelreid52
Honduras: yesterday's presidential election appears to confirm the overriding trend of anti-incumbency in Latin America, with Xiomara Castro, a leftist, 20 points ahead (with 50% counted) of the candidate of the corrupt ruling party. elpais.com/internacional/2021-11-29/los-dos-partidos-se-declaran-ganadores-en-honduras.html?ssm=TW_CC via @el_pais
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Xiomara Castro de Zelaya
XiomaraCastroZ
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Jan-Albert Hootsen 🇳🇱🇲🇽
jahootsen
Here's another important article in the runup to Sunday's presidential election in #Honduras: Could Honduras Shift Left? A Look at Xiomara Castro - by @BrenOBoyle for @AmerQuarterly www.americasquarterly.org/article/could-honduras-shift-left-a-look-at-xiomara-castro/
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12-year wait pays off for wife of former PM
Published:Tuesday | November 30, 2021
Moises Castillo
Free Party presidential candidate Xiomara Castro speaks to her supporters after general elections in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, on Sunday.
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP):
Xiomara Castro de Zelaya, the wife of ousted former President Mel Zelaya, has taken a commanding lead in Honduras’ elections, capping a 12-year effort.
If preliminary tallies from the election on Sunday are confirmed, Castro de Zelaya would become the Central American country’s first female president.
Her victory would also mark the return of her family to the presidential residence that they were ousted from in a 2009 coup.
The 62-year-old, three-time candidate has long said, “the third try is the charm”.
She grew up in the capital, Tegucigalpa, but moved to her husband’s rural province of Olancho, known for its cattle ranches, when the couple wed.
Together they raised four children, and during her husband’s 2006-2009 tenure, she played a relatively minor role, overseeing programmes for women and children.
But it was after the 2009 coup, which forced her husband into exile, that Castro de Zelaya came to the forefront. With Mel Zelaya running a sort of government in exile in Costa Rica and later in Nicaragua, it was up to his wife to lead the string of protests demanding his return and re-instatement.
By the time Zelaya formed the Libre, or Free Party, Castro de Zelaya’s popularity was evident among followers of the movement. Besides, the country’s constitution prohibited her husband from running for re-election.
Since 2013, the first time she ran, Castro de Zelaya has been the principal thorn in the side of Juan Orlando Hernández, the current president who won elections in 2013, and then gained the blessings of the country’s supreme court to run for re-election in 2017.
Castro de Zelaya ceded her candidacy in 2017 to Salvador Nasralla, a TV personality who ran at the head of an opposition coalition and claimed to have narrowly defeated Hernández.
After a protracted election filled with irregularities in 2017, protesters filled the streets and the government imposed a curfew. Three weeks later, Hernández was declared the winner, despite the Organization of American States observation mission calling for an election rerun. At least 23 people were killed.
Since then, Castro de Zelaya’s movement has focused laser-like on getting Hernández out of office.
Hernández became a national embarrassment, with US federal prosecutors in New York accusing him of running a narco-state and fuelling his own political rise with drug money. Hernández has denied it all and has not been formally charged, but that could change once he leaves office.
Castro de Zelaya sees it as a campaign to free her country.
“Honduras has been described as a narco-state because of the mafia that governs us, and we have also been described as the most corrupt country in Latin America,” Castro de Zelaya said at a recent campaign event. “People of Honduras, now is the time to say enough of the misery, poverty and exclusion that our country suffers.”
Published:Tuesday | November 30, 2021
Moises Castillo
Free Party presidential candidate Xiomara Castro speaks to her supporters after general elections in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, on Sunday.
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP):
Xiomara Castro de Zelaya, the wife of ousted former President Mel Zelaya, has taken a commanding lead in Honduras’ elections, capping a 12-year effort.
If preliminary tallies from the election on Sunday are confirmed, Castro de Zelaya would become the Central American country’s first female president.
Her victory would also mark the return of her family to the presidential residence that they were ousted from in a 2009 coup.
The 62-year-old, three-time candidate has long said, “the third try is the charm”.
She grew up in the capital, Tegucigalpa, but moved to her husband’s rural province of Olancho, known for its cattle ranches, when the couple wed.
Together they raised four children, and during her husband’s 2006-2009 tenure, she played a relatively minor role, overseeing programmes for women and children.
But it was after the 2009 coup, which forced her husband into exile, that Castro de Zelaya came to the forefront. With Mel Zelaya running a sort of government in exile in Costa Rica and later in Nicaragua, it was up to his wife to lead the string of protests demanding his return and re-instatement.
By the time Zelaya formed the Libre, or Free Party, Castro de Zelaya’s popularity was evident among followers of the movement. Besides, the country’s constitution prohibited her husband from running for re-election.
Since 2013, the first time she ran, Castro de Zelaya has been the principal thorn in the side of Juan Orlando Hernández, the current president who won elections in 2013, and then gained the blessings of the country’s supreme court to run for re-election in 2017.
Castro de Zelaya ceded her candidacy in 2017 to Salvador Nasralla, a TV personality who ran at the head of an opposition coalition and claimed to have narrowly defeated Hernández.
After a protracted election filled with irregularities in 2017, protesters filled the streets and the government imposed a curfew. Three weeks later, Hernández was declared the winner, despite the Organization of American States observation mission calling for an election rerun. At least 23 people were killed.
Since then, Castro de Zelaya’s movement has focused laser-like on getting Hernández out of office.
Hernández became a national embarrassment, with US federal prosecutors in New York accusing him of running a narco-state and fuelling his own political rise with drug money. Hernández has denied it all and has not been formally charged, but that could change once he leaves office.
Castro de Zelaya sees it as a campaign to free her country.
“Honduras has been described as a narco-state because of the mafia that governs us, and we have also been described as the most corrupt country in Latin America,” Castro de Zelaya said at a recent campaign event. “People of Honduras, now is the time to say enough of the misery, poverty and exclusion that our country suffers.”
Noe LEIVA, Barnaby CHESTERMAN
Tue, November 30, 2021
Once Xiomara Castro's expected election victory is confirmed, making her Honduras's first woman president, she will immediately face a daunting panorama of challenges.
With more than half of the votes counted, experts say Castro's 20 percentage point lead is "irreversible."
Here AFP looks at the toughest obstacles Castro is likely to face when taking office as head of a country wracked by gang violence, drug trafficking, corruption and widespread poverty.
- Dismantling corruption
According to Transparency International, Honduras is 157th out of 180 countries in its corruption perception index, making it one of the most graft-tainted places in the world.
Under outgoing President Juan Orlando Hernandez, the anti-corruption fight in Honduras suffered several blows in 2020.
Firstly a regional anti-corruption commission was disbanded, then congress passed a new criminal code to lower graft sentences, and finally a special appeals court dismissed charges against almost two dozen people accused of embezzling $12 million of public money.
Earlier this year a new penal code -- dubbed the impunity law -- came into effect that makes it tougher to try people for corruption.
The first task for Castro will be to reverse "all those laws and legislative reforms that previously allowed the current government to protect corrupt officials," said Victor Meza, the director of the Honduran Documentation Center NGO that promotes democracy.
It is a battle that she cannot win on her own, though.
"The issue of corruption and impunity is so strong that it needs outside actors to be able to" dismantle it, said Gustavo Irias, executive director of the Center for Democracy Studies.
- Tackle causes of mass migration
More than a dozen migrant caravans have set off from Honduras since October 2018 in the hope of reaching the United States.
Some of these consisted of thousands of people and former US president Donald Trump at one point threatened to deploy the US military to stop them.
In 2021 alone 50,000 Honduran migrants have been sent home from either the United States or Mexico.
The main solution is to create jobs.
Castro's LIBRE party in its campaign identified "the lack of employment as one of the most serious factors in the expulsion of the population."
Political analyst Raul Pineda says the problem is that even educated people cannot find work.
"They go to other countries because they don't have opportunities" in Honduras.
The Covid pandemic hit jobs particularly hard with unemployment almost doubling from 5.7 percent in 2019 to 10.9 percent in 2020.
Around 59 percent of the population lives in poverty.
- Fighting drug trafficking -
Drug trafficking has become such a problem in Honduras that it even pervades the very top rungs of government.
Family members of Honduras's last two presidents have been jailed in the United States for drug trafficking.
One of the main presidential candidates, Yani Rosenthal served three years in a US jail for laundering drug trafficking money.
Honduras has been branded a "narco-state" over government links to the illicit business.
Drug barons extradited to the United States by Hernandez have even pointed the finger at him.
Migdonia Ayestas, director of the Violence Observatory at the National University says Castro needs to "attack impunity" that sees politicians and criminal gangs working together in drug trafficking.
To do so will involve "the purification of justice agencies, the police."
- Managing foreign relations
The United States took great interest in the presidential poll, sending assistant secretary of state for the western hemisphere Brian Nichols to the country to meet with officials and demand "transparent and peaceful elections."
"The Americans feel they are losing influence in Central America," said Pineda.
"They have a bad relationship with El Salvador, a bad relationship with Nicaragua ... the relationship with Guatemala has cooled a lot, so to lose Honduras would be to lose control of Central America."
The US maintains a military base in Honduras, ostensibly to provide humanitarian aid to the region.
Leftist Castro was rumored to have made overtures to China during the election campaign but Pineda cannot see a drastic change in foreign policy.
"It's not an ideological issue, it's about interests, opportunities," he said.
"China has shown no interest in tightening relations with Honduras.
"The US is the power that we orbit around. They buy 95 percent of our exports, they lend us money so the Honduran economy can survive ... they can maintain the economy of this country so no government is going to fight with them while this economic dependency exists."
nl/bc/mtp
NEWSMAKER-Castro vows to pull Honduras 'out of the abyss' as first female president
by Reuters
Monday, 29 November 2021
By Gustavo Palencia
TEGUCIGALPA, Nov 29 (Reuters) - Honduras' leftist politician Xiomara Castro, who is on track https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/honduras-set-woman-president-leftist-castro-declares-victory-2021-11-29 to be the first female president of the Central American nation, doesn't shy away from making history.
In 2009, she catapulted herself to the helm of a protest movement after her husband, former president Manuel Zelaya, was ousted by a military coup, which pitched Honduras into crisis.
The Liberty and Refoundation (Libre) party emerged out of this movement, and after Sunday's elections it was slated to break a century-long run of governments formed from one of two parties.
Castro, 62, looked set for a landslide victory that would bring an end to 12 years of conservative National Party rule marred by corruption, allegations of the president's links to drug trafficking, and an exodus of migrants.
The second of five children in a middle-class family, Castro was born in 1959 in Tegucigalpa. She earned a bachelor's degree in business administration and later moved northeast of the capital where she raised four children with Zelaya.
Promoting "democratic socialism," Castro wants to decriminalize abortion, reduce bank charges for remittances, create a U.N.-backed anti-corruption commission and repeal new laws that she says feeds corruption and drug trafficking.
"I believe firmly that the democratic socialism I propose is the solution to pull Honduras out of the abyss we have been buried in by neo-liberalism, a narco-dictator and corruption," Castro said in a campaign speech.
MORE DIRECT DEMOCRACY
"Participatory democracy" in the form of referendums and consultations on big policy changes will be central to Castro's administration, according to a document outlining her government's plans. Previous attempts at more direct democracy in Latin America have at times conversely strengthened patronage politics and leaders' power.
Castro will also convene a national assembly that could allow her to overhaul the constitution, a proposal her husband Zelaya initiated shortly before his overthrow. The document is vague on the goal of the overhaul, but mentions guaranteeing social and economic rights.
When Zelaya was president Castro was especially active in policymaking and pushed for social programs and subsidies for poor children, women and the elderly, which helped build her popularity.
She has also run agricultural and timber companies in the private sector.
Despite similarities in policy, Zelaya did not take a big role in his wife's campaign.
"Ex-president Zelaya knows that as party coordinator, he has a relationship of deferential respect to the president," said historian and longtime friend of the candidate Anarella Velez.
Velez added that Castro's strong-willed personality would keep her firmly in control of government.
The National Party, which was beset by corruption scandals, sought to portray Castro as a dangerous radical in order to remain in power.
Yet, while Castro's party Libre is part of the Sao Paolo Forum, an organization with the goal of reimagining the Latin American left after the fall of the Berlin wall, many doubt Castro will adopt extreme policies.
"We might see some cozying up to governments that preach 19th-century socialism, but it will be more a formality than anything else," said political analyst Raul Pineda.
"Honduras depends on trade with the United States and it's so weak it can't survive even a month of economic isolation from Washington." (Reporting by Gustavo Palencia, writing by Jake Kincaid; editing by Laura Gottesidener and Grant McCool)
by Reuters
Monday, 29 November 2021
By Gustavo Palencia
TEGUCIGALPA, Nov 29 (Reuters) - Honduras' leftist politician Xiomara Castro, who is on track https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/honduras-set-woman-president-leftist-castro-declares-victory-2021-11-29 to be the first female president of the Central American nation, doesn't shy away from making history.
In 2009, she catapulted herself to the helm of a protest movement after her husband, former president Manuel Zelaya, was ousted by a military coup, which pitched Honduras into crisis.
The Liberty and Refoundation (Libre) party emerged out of this movement, and after Sunday's elections it was slated to break a century-long run of governments formed from one of two parties.
Castro, 62, looked set for a landslide victory that would bring an end to 12 years of conservative National Party rule marred by corruption, allegations of the president's links to drug trafficking, and an exodus of migrants.
The second of five children in a middle-class family, Castro was born in 1959 in Tegucigalpa. She earned a bachelor's degree in business administration and later moved northeast of the capital where she raised four children with Zelaya.
Promoting "democratic socialism," Castro wants to decriminalize abortion, reduce bank charges for remittances, create a U.N.-backed anti-corruption commission and repeal new laws that she says feeds corruption and drug trafficking.
"I believe firmly that the democratic socialism I propose is the solution to pull Honduras out of the abyss we have been buried in by neo-liberalism, a narco-dictator and corruption," Castro said in a campaign speech.
MORE DIRECT DEMOCRACY
"Participatory democracy" in the form of referendums and consultations on big policy changes will be central to Castro's administration, according to a document outlining her government's plans. Previous attempts at more direct democracy in Latin America have at times conversely strengthened patronage politics and leaders' power.
Castro will also convene a national assembly that could allow her to overhaul the constitution, a proposal her husband Zelaya initiated shortly before his overthrow. The document is vague on the goal of the overhaul, but mentions guaranteeing social and economic rights.
When Zelaya was president Castro was especially active in policymaking and pushed for social programs and subsidies for poor children, women and the elderly, which helped build her popularity.
She has also run agricultural and timber companies in the private sector.
Despite similarities in policy, Zelaya did not take a big role in his wife's campaign.
"Ex-president Zelaya knows that as party coordinator, he has a relationship of deferential respect to the president," said historian and longtime friend of the candidate Anarella Velez.
Velez added that Castro's strong-willed personality would keep her firmly in control of government.
The National Party, which was beset by corruption scandals, sought to portray Castro as a dangerous radical in order to remain in power.
Yet, while Castro's party Libre is part of the Sao Paolo Forum, an organization with the goal of reimagining the Latin American left after the fall of the Berlin wall, many doubt Castro will adopt extreme policies.
"We might see some cozying up to governments that preach 19th-century socialism, but it will be more a formality than anything else," said political analyst Raul Pineda.
"Honduras depends on trade with the United States and it's so weak it can't survive even a month of economic isolation from Washington." (Reporting by Gustavo Palencia, writing by Jake Kincaid; editing by Laura Gottesidener and Grant McCool)
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