Hondurans cast ballots for their next president on Sunday amid threats by US President Donald Trump to cut aid to the country if his preferred candidate loses.Honduras could be the next country in Latin America, after Argentina and Bolivia, to swing right after years of leftist rule.Polls show three candidates neck-and-neck in the race to succeed leftist President Xiomara Castro, whose husband, Manuel Zelaya, also led the country before being toppled in a 2009 coup.Lawmakers and hundreds of mayors will also be elected in the fiercely polarized nation, which is one of the most violent countries in Latin America, mainly due to drug trafficking and gang activity.Polls opened at 7:00 am (1300 GMT) for 10 hours of voting, with the first results expected late Sunday.Trump has thrown his support behind 67-year-old Nasry “Tito” Asfura of the right-wing National Party — and said continued US support for one of Latin America’s poorest countries will be contingent on Asfura winning.”If he (Asfura) doesn’t win, the United States will not be throwing good money after bad,” he wrote Friday on his Truth Social platform, echoing threats he made in support of Argentine President Javier Milei’s party in that country’s recent midterms.Asfura’s main challengers are 60-year-old lawyer Rixi Moncada from Castro’s ruling Libre party and 72-year-old TV host Salvador Nasralla of the Liberal Party.The 66-year-old Castro, in power since 2022, is barred by the constitution from seeking a second consecutive term.Some Hondurans have welcomed Trump’s interventionism, saying they hope it might mean Honduran migrants will be allowed to remain in the United States.But others have rejected his meddling in the vote.”I vote for whomever I please, not because of what Trump has said, because the truth is I live off my work, not off politicians,” Esmeralda Rodriguez, a 56-year-old fruit seller, told AFP.Nearly 30,000 Honduran migrants have been deported from the United States since Trump returned to office in January.The clampdown has dealt a severe blow to the country of 11 million people, where remittances represented 27 percent of GDP last year.In a stunning move on Friday, Trump also announced he would pardon former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez, of Asfura’s National Party, who is serving a 45-year prison sentence in the United States for cocaine trafficking and other charges.After voting in the capital Tegucigalpa, Asfura denied that the planned pardon would benefit him, saying: “This issue has been circulating for months, and it has nothing to do with the elections.”- Fears of election fraud -Moncada has portrayed the election as a choice between a “coup-plotting oligarchy” — a reference to the right’s backing of the 2009 military ouster of Zelaya — and democratic socialism.Moncada, who has held ministerial portfolios under both Zelaya and Castro, said she will only acknowledge the final results, not preliminary counts.Nasralla also served in Castro’s government but fell out with the ruling party and has since shifted to the right. The 67-year-old Asfura was in the construction business before being elected mayor of Tegucigalpa, serving two terms.Preemptive accusations of election fraud, made both by the ruling party and opposition, have sown mistrust in the vote and sparked fears of post-election unrest.The president of the National Electoral Council, Ana Paola Hall, warned all parties “not to fan the flames of confrontation or violence” at the start of the single-round election.- ‘Escape poverty’ -Long a transit point for cocaine exported from Colombia to the United States, Honduras is now also a producer of the drug.But the candidates barely addressed the fears of Hondurans about drug trafficking, poverty and violence during the campaign. “I hope the new government will have good lines of communication with Trump, and that he will also support us,” said Maria Velasquez, who is 58.”I just want to escape poverty.”
Hondurans cast ballots for their next president on Sunday amid threats by US President Donald Trump to cut aid to the country if his preferred candidate loses.Honduras could be the next country in Latin America, after Argentina and Bolivia, to swing right after years of leftist rule.Polls show three candidates neck-and-neck in the race to succeed leftist President Xiomara Castro, whose husband, Manuel Zelaya, also led the country before being toppled in a 2009 coup.Lawmakers and hundreds of mayors will also be elected in the fiercely polarized nation, which is one of the most violent countries in Latin America, mainly due to drug trafficking and gang activity.Polls opened at 7:00 am (1300 GMT) for 10 hours of voting, with the first results expected late Sunday.Trump has thrown his support behind 67-year-old Nasry “Tito” Asfura of the right-wing National Party — and said continued US support for one of Latin America’s poorest countries will be contingent on Asfura winning.”If he (Asfura) doesn’t win, the United States will not be throwing good money after bad,” he wrote Friday on his Truth Social platform, echoing threats he made in support of Argentine President Javier Milei’s party in that country’s recent midterms.Asfura’s main challengers are 60-year-old lawyer Rixi Moncada from Castro’s ruling Libre party and 72-year-old TV host Salvador Nasralla of the Liberal Party.The 66-year-old Castro, in power since 2022, is barred by the constitution from seeking a second consecutive term.Some Hondurans have welcomed Trump’s interventionism, saying they hope it might mean Honduran migrants will be allowed to remain in the United States.But others have rejected his meddling in the vote.”I vote for whomever I please, not because of what Trump has said, because the truth is I live off my work, not off politicians,” Esmeralda Rodriguez, a 56-year-old fruit seller, told AFP.Nearly 30,000 Honduran migrants have been deported from the United States since Trump returned to office in January.The clampdown has dealt a severe blow to the country of 11 million people, where remittances represented 27 percent of GDP last year.In a stunning move on Friday, Trump also announced he would pardon former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez, of Asfura’s National Party, who is serving a 45-year prison sentence in the United States for cocaine trafficking and other charges.After voting in the capital Tegucigalpa, Asfura denied that the planned pardon would benefit him, saying: “This issue has been circulating for months, and it has nothing to do with the elections.”- Fears of election fraud -Moncada has portrayed the election as a choice between a “coup-plotting oligarchy” — a reference to the right’s backing of the 2009 military ouster of Zelaya — and democratic socialism.Moncada, who has held ministerial portfolios under both Zelaya and Castro, said she will only acknowledge the final results, not preliminary counts.Nasralla also served in Castro’s government but fell out with the ruling party and has since shifted to the right. The 67-year-old Asfura was in the construction business before being elected mayor of Tegucigalpa, serving two terms.Preemptive accusations of election fraud, made both by the ruling party and opposition, have sown mistrust in the vote and sparked fears of post-election unrest.The president of the National Electoral Council, Ana Paola Hall, warned all parties “not to fan the flames of confrontation or violence” at the start of the single-round election.- ‘Escape poverty’ -Long a transit point for cocaine exported from Colombia to the United States, Honduras is now also a producer of the drug.But the candidates barely addressed the fears of Hondurans about drug trafficking, poverty and violence during the campaign. “I hope the new government will have good lines of communication with Trump, and that he will also support us,” said Maria Velasquez, who is 58.”I just want to escape poverty.”
