3 things that are at stake in the Honduran elections (in addition to the future of the outgoing president, pointed out by drug trafficking in the US)

Will the left return to power? It will come closer Honduras to China after years of strong ties with the United States? What will happen to the outgoing president Juan Orlando Hernández?

Honduras celebrates this Sunday a presidential, legislative and local mega-elections with several transcendental issues at stake in a country in which political violence, migration and poverty are growing.

The campaign has been marked by political violence that reached “disturbing levels”, as denounced by the United Nations.

During the last year, at least one thirty politically motivated murders, which were accompanied by accusations of corruption and drug trafficking among some candidates that even dot the current president, Juan Orlando Hernandez.

In addition to this tension, recently created electoral bodies promote the risk that large post-election protests could be repeated, such as those that followed the 2017 elections, on which there were accusations of fraud in the counting of results.

According to polls, the conservative ruler National Party (PN) and the Freedom and Refoundation Party (Free) they are the ones with the best chance of winning.

The candidate of the first formation is the mayor of Tegucigalpa, Nasry Asfura, who has used his campaign to try to show distance from the current president, Juan Orlando Hernandez, singled out in US courts for alleged links to drug trafficking and who does not run for reelection.

Free opponent leads it Xiomara Castro, who aspires to be the first Honduran president. She is the wife of the former president Manuel Zelaya, who had to leave the country after the 2009 coup. A Castro victory would mean the return of a left-wing government to the Central American nation.

These are three of the things that are at stake in these elections, whose winner will have to put some of the main problems of the country such as poverty, unemployment, violence and migration among his priorities.

1.- A possible return of the left after the 2009 coup

Faced with the continuity of the PN, which has governed for eleven years, a victory for Libre would mean the return of the left to the country.

Xiomara Castro proclaims a “democratic socialism” and proposes to decriminalize abortion, reduce the fees charged by banks to remittance recipients, create an international commission against corruption with the support of the UN and the repeal of a series of laws adopted in the last years.

One of them, the one that created the controversies Employment and Economic Development Zones (ZEDES), considering that they serve as a refuge for the corrupt and drug traffickers due to their autonomous nature.

Whether or not the left returns, the country’s challenges are clear. One is the economy.

In the last five years, the Honduran economy slowed its growth, weighed down by insecurity and corruption. In 2020, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the second most populous country in Central America fell by 9% due to the effects of the pandemic and two powerful hurricanes that hit the area.

World Bank projections show that the proportion of people living below the poverty line of US $ 5.5 a day would have risen to 55% in 2020; that is, more than 700,000 new poor.

In addition, from 2019 to 2020, the unemployment rate almost doubled, reaching 10.9% and the underemployment rate went from 60.6% to 70.7%. In September 2021, some 3.3 million Hondurans – a third of the country – faced acute food insecurity.

Whoever triumphs on Sunday will receive a country with more than US $ 15,000 million in public debt, which represents 57% of GDP. Of that total, about US $ 8,172 million correspond to external debt, reports the Reuters agency.

The leftist Castro proposes to “readjust” and “audit” the debt, while Asfura’s policy could imply greater collaboration with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), with which the country has an agreement and a line of credit.

Improving these conditions is key to curbing migration.

In fiscal year 2021, which ended in September, Hondurans accounted for almost half of the 701,049 Central Americans detained on the southwestern border of the United States, according to figures from that country’s Customs and Border Protection Office.

The money sent by Honduran migrants – who mostly reside in the United States – represents 22% of the Central American country’s GDP, one of the highest percentages in the region.

On the social front, the possible return of the left could mean the arrival of more progressive policies, but this could collide with the conservative beliefs of much of Honduran society.

A clear example was seen when the Libre government program contemplated including “inclusive sexual education for LGTBIQ +” in schools. After the controversy created in social networks, the proposal was eliminated on the grounds that it was “a mistake.”

According to Tiziano Breda, analyst for Central America of the International Crisis Group“Libre has developed a more pragmatic and cordial position to find synergies with certain sectors. It is less radical than in the past, which created many antibodies that favored the PN to stay in power playing with those tensions.”

This clash of ideologies, in fact, has been present in the electoral campaign. The PN organized a march “against the arrival of communism and abortion”, which in Honduras is prohibited in all cases. Libre proposes to decriminalize it in case of rape, risk to the mother or malformation of the fetus.

“The family is the fundamental basis of a State to get ahead (…) believing in what we Hondurans are, without strange ideologies from other countries,” Afura stressed.

After his departure due to the coup in 2009, many wonder what the real role of former President Zelaya, currently Libre’s coordinator, will be if the party were to become president.

“Although he has declared that Xiomara is an independent candidate with her ideas, the general perception is that her margin is somewhat limited by the important presence of Zelaya, as if she were the mind behind and the real taker of certain policies and strategies,” he says. Breda.

2.- The relationship with the US and China

The victory of one or the other presidential candidate on Sunday will mark Honduras’s relations with the exterior and its strategic partners.

It is foreseeable that a new government of the National Party will bet on continuing its good relationship with Taiwan, Israel and, above all, with the United States.

Honduras has indissoluble ties with Washington such as immigration interests (it is the main destination of Hondurans), the fight against drug trafficking (much of the drug that enters the US from South America passes through Honduras) and commercial interests.

If Libre wins, however, changes are coming. In their government program, for example, they already make clear their intention to establish diplomatic relations with mainland China.

“This could raise some concern in Washington and imply a break in relations with Taiwan,” Breda tells BBC Mundo.

“But at the same time, I think it would be difficult to slow down given the inevitability that the Chinese presence will continue to increase in the region,” he adds.

The Taiwanese government, for its part, has already responded to Castro’s announcement: “Beijing’s promises are showy, but false,” said a spokesman for its Foreign Ministry.

The United States, its largest trading partner, is conditioning US $ 4 billion in aid for Honduras and other Central American countries in the fight against corruption, one of the country’s great problems.

3. Key authorities such as the Supreme Court of Justice

Although most of the attention is focused on who will be the new president, in these elections the 298 mayors of the country, the deputies of the Central American Parliament and, especially importantly, the members of the National Congress will also be elected.

How the Chamber is formed will be momentous, since the new deputies will have the power to elect key authorities in the enforcement of the law and the fight against corruption in the country.

One of them will be the attorney general who heads the Public Ministry and who ends his current term in 2023. That same year, the deputies will also elect the new magistrates of the Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ) for the period 2023-2030.

“The election of the president is closely linked to the figure of the candidate, but at the legislative level identification with the party counts more. For this reason, in Congress, I do not see the ability of the opposition to achieve a majority. In case they achieve the presidency , We could have an Executive and Legislative in the hands of opposing parties“predicts Breda.

Transcendental issues for the country are decided at the CSJ. The body was, for example, the one who ratified the resolution that gave way to the presidential re-election of Hernández in 2017, something that the Constitution prohibited since 1982 and that caused large protests.

Thus, the political negotiation to appoint the heads of the Judiciary for the coming years could also be vital on issues such as the future of the outgoing president.

And what will happen to Juan Orlando Hernández?

What will happen to the current president is, in fact, one of the biggest unknowns after the elections this Sunday.

Hernández was singled out for drug trafficking in several judicial processes in the US, including the one that sentenced his brother Tony for that crime. Witnesses and documents presented by prosecutors indicated that he had received bribes from different drug lords in exchange for granting them protection.

Hernández always denied the accusations of the accused in Court and assured that it was all due to his desire for revenge or to reduce their sentences. The US has not brought charges against him or initiated a formal indictment.

“All these mentions could herald that, after leaving office and losing his immunity, there may be the conditions for a direct investigation to be opened … Although everything remains to be seen,” says Breda.

In the absence of knowing if the US Justice moves tab, says the Crisis Group analyst, the options are many. Even that an internal investigation is finally opened in Honduras that would prevent a possible extradition.

Paradoxically, it was while Hernández was president of Congress that the deputies approved in 2012 the reform of the article of the Constitution that prohibited the extradition of Honduran citizens.

More recently, in the country it was much commented that, a few weeks before these elections, Hernández decided to travel to allied territories such as Taiwan and Nicaragua. The latter granted political asylum in the past to Central American officials such as the former Salvadoran president. Mauricio Funes.

These signs have been used in the campaign by Libre. “Honduras is classified as a narco-state for this mafia that governs us, “Castro said at a rally to warn of the risk of a continuation of the PN.

Asfura’s team, for its part, used the motto “Daddy is different!” in an apparent attempt to mark distance with the opposition but also with Hernández himself, who was not seen in any campaign act of the PN and for whom the support from his own party is not at all clear after his departure from Casa Presidential.

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