(AFP/Luis ACOSTA)More
Moises AVILA
Fri, November 26, 2021,
Marlon Escoto has been rummaging through rubbish since he was 14, trying to chase off vultures while picking out pieces of plastic and fragments of metal to sell.
Ravaged by drug trafficking, violent gangs, corruption, political instability and hurricanes, Honduras sees more than half its 10 million people -- 59 percent -- scraping by in poverty.
"I look after my children from here... from the rubbish," Escoto, 59, told AFP as he stood in a sprawling dump on a hill overlooking the capital city Tegucigalpa.
He will not be leaving it anytime soon.
Escoto's wife is in hospital and he needs to pay for her treatment. But he says his earnings from scavenging barely put food on the table.
On this particular day Escoto is one of perhaps 100 people picking through the mountains of garbage at the municipal dump.
Honduras will hold presidential elections on Sunday, and Escoto does not know who to vote for.
Left-wing candidate Xiomara Castro, a former first lady who leads in several opinion polls, will be trying to break the decades-long, alternating grip on power of the ruling National Party and the Liberal Party.
"Everyone has the right to vote because we're citizens," Escoto said. "But none of the parties have helped me. I paid for everything in my house."
Handouts, though, are common in Honduras, and they seem to spike as elections near.
A month ago, the government started distributing vouchers worth 7,000 lempiras -- about $290 -- per family to alleviate poverty. The minimum wage is around $400 a month, although most people work in the underground, off the books economy.
Queues of people formed to receive their vouchers as the opposition accused the government of buying votes.
"We have to see what the effects of the money dance will be," said Eugenio Sosa, an analyst and professor at the National University.
Liberal Party candidate Yani Rosenthal has also promised vouchers -- worth $60 a month to each adult -- if elected, without saying how he would fund it.
"Here we collect plastic bottles, cardboard, glass bottles, paper," said Marco Antonio Cruz, 69, another recycler working at the dump. "They haven't given us much, just enough for a plate of food."
Magdalena Cerritos, 72, and her four children all work at the municipal dump close to Honduras's capital, but she holds no grudges against the governing party (AFP/Luis ACOSTA)
- 'Vultures circle above' -
As soon as the sun rises, trucks turn up at the dump -- known locally as the "crematorium" -- to unload more mountains of rubbish.
Vultures circle above before swooping down to compete with humans for scraps of food.
The recyclers have municipal permits to scavenge. Some even consider their permit a gift from the mayor, Nasry Asfura, the presidential candidate for the ruling National Party.
Many work alone, others as part of a cooperative.
The stench stings nostrils and seeps into clothing.
Recyclers pick animal entrails off plastic bottles with no sign of disgust. They joke that even Covid-19 would not enter the dump.
The pandemic was largely responsible for pushing unemployment here from 5.7 percent in 2019 to 10.9 percent in 2020, according to a study by the Autonomous University.
"I brought up my children here," said Magdalena Cerritos, 72. "I have four children that work here," since there is "no work" elsewhere.
Even after 40 years picking through rubbish at the "crematorium," Cerritos, ever hopeful, plans to stick with National Party candidate Asfura, whose nickname is Papi a la Orden (Papi at your service).
"I'm a Nationalist, and I'll go for Papi," she said. "I think Papi could do well."
mav/bc/bbk/dw
Moises AVILA
Fri, November 26, 2021,
Marlon Escoto has been rummaging through rubbish since he was 14, trying to chase off vultures while picking out pieces of plastic and fragments of metal to sell.
Ravaged by drug trafficking, violent gangs, corruption, political instability and hurricanes, Honduras sees more than half its 10 million people -- 59 percent -- scraping by in poverty.
"I look after my children from here... from the rubbish," Escoto, 59, told AFP as he stood in a sprawling dump on a hill overlooking the capital city Tegucigalpa.
He will not be leaving it anytime soon.
Escoto's wife is in hospital and he needs to pay for her treatment. But he says his earnings from scavenging barely put food on the table.
On this particular day Escoto is one of perhaps 100 people picking through the mountains of garbage at the municipal dump.
Honduras will hold presidential elections on Sunday, and Escoto does not know who to vote for.
Left-wing candidate Xiomara Castro, a former first lady who leads in several opinion polls, will be trying to break the decades-long, alternating grip on power of the ruling National Party and the Liberal Party.
"Everyone has the right to vote because we're citizens," Escoto said. "But none of the parties have helped me. I paid for everything in my house."
Handouts, though, are common in Honduras, and they seem to spike as elections near.
A month ago, the government started distributing vouchers worth 7,000 lempiras -- about $290 -- per family to alleviate poverty. The minimum wage is around $400 a month, although most people work in the underground, off the books economy.
Queues of people formed to receive their vouchers as the opposition accused the government of buying votes.
"We have to see what the effects of the money dance will be," said Eugenio Sosa, an analyst and professor at the National University.
Liberal Party candidate Yani Rosenthal has also promised vouchers -- worth $60 a month to each adult -- if elected, without saying how he would fund it.
"Here we collect plastic bottles, cardboard, glass bottles, paper," said Marco Antonio Cruz, 69, another recycler working at the dump. "They haven't given us much, just enough for a plate of food."
Magdalena Cerritos, 72, and her four children all work at the municipal dump close to Honduras's capital, but she holds no grudges against the governing party (AFP/Luis ACOSTA)
- 'Vultures circle above' -
As soon as the sun rises, trucks turn up at the dump -- known locally as the "crematorium" -- to unload more mountains of rubbish.
Vultures circle above before swooping down to compete with humans for scraps of food.
The recyclers have municipal permits to scavenge. Some even consider their permit a gift from the mayor, Nasry Asfura, the presidential candidate for the ruling National Party.
Many work alone, others as part of a cooperative.
The stench stings nostrils and seeps into clothing.
An aerial shot of people looking through rubbish for pieces of plastic or metal to sell at a municipal dump on the outskirts of Tegucigalpa (AFP/Luis ACOSTA)
Recyclers pick animal entrails off plastic bottles with no sign of disgust. They joke that even Covid-19 would not enter the dump.
The pandemic was largely responsible for pushing unemployment here from 5.7 percent in 2019 to 10.9 percent in 2020, according to a study by the Autonomous University.
"I brought up my children here," said Magdalena Cerritos, 72. "I have four children that work here," since there is "no work" elsewhere.
Even after 40 years picking through rubbish at the "crematorium," Cerritos, ever hopeful, plans to stick with National Party candidate Asfura, whose nickname is Papi a la Orden (Papi at your service).
"I'm a Nationalist, and I'll go for Papi," she said. "I think Papi could do well."
mav/bc/bbk/dw
Hondurans weary of corruption look for change in election
By MARLON GONZÁLEZ and CHRISTOPHER SHERMAN
1 of 7
By MARLON GONZÁLEZ and CHRISTOPHER SHERMAN
1 of 7
Free Party presidential candidate Xiomara Castro acknowledges supporters accompanied by her running mate Salvador Nasralla, right, during a closing campaign rally, in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, Saturday, Nov. 20, 2021. Honduras will hold presidential election on Nov. 28. (AP Photo/Delmer Martinez)
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) — For many Hondurans, Sunday’s election will be about stripping power from a party whose successive administrations are widely seen as having deepened corruption and driven tens of thousands to flee the country, many toward the United States.
Expelling President Juan Orlando Hernández’s National Party after 12 years is more important to them than who takes power when it’s gone. The animosity toward Hernández is such that for several years, migrants walking out of Honduras have chanted “Get out J.O.H.!” referring to his initials.
Complaints against Hernández and his party are multiple. An already difficult life has gotten even harder for many. Honduras was hit by two devastating hurricanes in 2020. The pandemic raised unemployment to 10.9% last year, according to the National Statistics Institute. The economy shrank by 9%, according to the World Bank. And street gangs rule swaths of territory through terror.
Hernández has also become a national embarrassment. U.S. federal prosecutors in New York have accused him of running a narco state and fueling 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.
And many believe Hernández isn’t legitimately their president. A friendly court sidestepped the constitutional ban on reelection and Hernández won a 2017 contest filled with irregularities that nonetheless was quickly recognized by the Trump administration.
So the National Party’s candidate in Sunday’s election, Tegucigalpa Mayor Nasry Asfura, has faced significant headwinds as Hernández’s chosen successor.
Honduran prosecutors also accuse him of diverting more than $1 million in public funds to personal use, but the Supreme Court has put the case on hold until a sort comptroller court investigates.
Try as he might, Asfura hasn’t been able to shake Hernández’s stigma. At a recent rally in Tegucigalpa, Asfura pleaded, “I am different.”
The National Party’s strength is its ability to distribute benefits and mobilize voters, including some 200,000 government employees, and Asfura is still in the race. Whichever of the 14 candidates gets the most votes Sunday wins; there is no runoff.
Polls give Xiomara Castro the best chance of beating Asfura. This is Castro’s third try. She lost to Hernández in his first run and then dropped out in 2017 when she joined the coalition backing television personality Salvador Nasralla, who this year dropped out to back her.
The 62-year-old candidate of the leftist Liberty and Refoundation party is the wife of former President Jose Manuel Zelaya, who had aggravated both the U.S. and Honduran establishments by building close ties with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. He was ousted by the military in a coup in 2009. Officials justified his ouster by alleging he planned to violate the same constitutional ban on reelection that Hernández later ignored.
He too has faced corruption allegations. When a Honduran drug trafficker was sentenced to life in prison in the United States in 2019, U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman said he had paid millions in bribes to government officials, including $2 million to Zelaya, an accusation Zelaya denied.
Castro’s campaign has focused on the need to remove the existing power structure, and tying Asfura to Hernández at every opportunity.
“They call Honduras a narco state because of this mafia that governs us and because of which they also say we’re the most corrupt country in Latin America,” Castro said at a recent campaign event. “This is the moment to say enough of the misery, the poverty and the exclusion that our country experiences now.”
For years, the U.S. relationship with Honduras has been governed by Honduras’ willingness to cooperate in the war on drugs as a key transshipment point for cocaine headed north and in helping to stem migration?. But U.S. prosecutors have shown that while the government was assisting in interdiction, its politicians were benefitting from drug proceeds and helping protect other shipments, most notably in the case of former lawmaker Juan Antonio “Tony” Hernández, the president’s brother, who was sentenced to life in prison in the United States.
The Biden administration has continued to struggle with Central American migrants arriving at the Southwest border, many of them from Honduras. Vice President Kamala Harris has said corruption in the region as one of the key problems driving that movement.
According to the Vanderbilt University’s Americas’ Barometer Pulse of Democracy 2021 report released this month, more than half of the those polled in the nation of 9.3 million expressed a desire to live or work abroad — 30 percentage points higher than in 2004.
In addition to president, Hondurans will elect a new congress and their representatives for the Central American Parliament.
Luis Vásquez, a 43-year-old systems technician in Tegucigalpa, said he was underwhelmed by all of the candidates.
“There isn’t an option of proposals that we can trust; it’s just more of the same,” he said. But he was sure his vote would not go to the National Party, “because of the high level of corruption it has shown.”
__
Sherman reported from Mexico City.
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) — For many Hondurans, Sunday’s election will be about stripping power from a party whose successive administrations are widely seen as having deepened corruption and driven tens of thousands to flee the country, many toward the United States.
Expelling President Juan Orlando Hernández’s National Party after 12 years is more important to them than who takes power when it’s gone. The animosity toward Hernández is such that for several years, migrants walking out of Honduras have chanted “Get out J.O.H.!” referring to his initials.
Complaints against Hernández and his party are multiple. An already difficult life has gotten even harder for many. Honduras was hit by two devastating hurricanes in 2020. The pandemic raised unemployment to 10.9% last year, according to the National Statistics Institute. The economy shrank by 9%, according to the World Bank. And street gangs rule swaths of territory through terror.
Hernández has also become a national embarrassment. U.S. federal prosecutors in New York have accused him of running a narco state and fueling 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.
And many believe Hernández isn’t legitimately their president. A friendly court sidestepped the constitutional ban on reelection and Hernández won a 2017 contest filled with irregularities that nonetheless was quickly recognized by the Trump administration.
So the National Party’s candidate in Sunday’s election, Tegucigalpa Mayor Nasry Asfura, has faced significant headwinds as Hernández’s chosen successor.
Honduran prosecutors also accuse him of diverting more than $1 million in public funds to personal use, but the Supreme Court has put the case on hold until a sort comptroller court investigates.
Try as he might, Asfura hasn’t been able to shake Hernández’s stigma. At a recent rally in Tegucigalpa, Asfura pleaded, “I am different.”
The National Party’s strength is its ability to distribute benefits and mobilize voters, including some 200,000 government employees, and Asfura is still in the race. Whichever of the 14 candidates gets the most votes Sunday wins; there is no runoff.
Polls give Xiomara Castro the best chance of beating Asfura. This is Castro’s third try. She lost to Hernández in his first run and then dropped out in 2017 when she joined the coalition backing television personality Salvador Nasralla, who this year dropped out to back her.
The 62-year-old candidate of the leftist Liberty and Refoundation party is the wife of former President Jose Manuel Zelaya, who had aggravated both the U.S. and Honduran establishments by building close ties with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. He was ousted by the military in a coup in 2009. Officials justified his ouster by alleging he planned to violate the same constitutional ban on reelection that Hernández later ignored.
He too has faced corruption allegations. When a Honduran drug trafficker was sentenced to life in prison in the United States in 2019, U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman said he had paid millions in bribes to government officials, including $2 million to Zelaya, an accusation Zelaya denied.
Castro’s campaign has focused on the need to remove the existing power structure, and tying Asfura to Hernández at every opportunity.
“They call Honduras a narco state because of this mafia that governs us and because of which they also say we’re the most corrupt country in Latin America,” Castro said at a recent campaign event. “This is the moment to say enough of the misery, the poverty and the exclusion that our country experiences now.”
For years, the U.S. relationship with Honduras has been governed by Honduras’ willingness to cooperate in the war on drugs as a key transshipment point for cocaine headed north and in helping to stem migration?. But U.S. prosecutors have shown that while the government was assisting in interdiction, its politicians were benefitting from drug proceeds and helping protect other shipments, most notably in the case of former lawmaker Juan Antonio “Tony” Hernández, the president’s brother, who was sentenced to life in prison in the United States.
The Biden administration has continued to struggle with Central American migrants arriving at the Southwest border, many of them from Honduras. Vice President Kamala Harris has said corruption in the region as one of the key problems driving that movement.
According to the Vanderbilt University’s Americas’ Barometer Pulse of Democracy 2021 report released this month, more than half of the those polled in the nation of 9.3 million expressed a desire to live or work abroad — 30 percentage points higher than in 2004.
In addition to president, Hondurans will elect a new congress and their representatives for the Central American Parliament.
Luis Vásquez, a 43-year-old systems technician in Tegucigalpa, said he was underwhelmed by all of the candidates.
“There isn’t an option of proposals that we can trust; it’s just more of the same,” he said. But he was sure his vote would not go to the National Party, “because of the high level of corruption it has shown.”
__
Sherman reported from Mexico City.
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