Photograph Source: Camfer03 – CC0

Elections taking place November 30 in Honduras will decide the country’s next president and make-up of the national assembly. Current President Xiomara Castro of the democratic socialist Party of Liberty and Refoundation (Libre), in office since 2022, is limited to one term. Libre Party presidential candidate Rixi Moncada was finance minister and then defense minister in Castro’s government.

The mantra circulates that ten families rule in Honduras and hold most of its wealth. Their influence is such that left-leaning opposition forces can count on the most forceful kind of pushback.

Businessman Manuel Zelaya turned progressive politician was Honduras’ president from 2006 until June 2009, when a military coup deposed him, with U.S. help. He had called for a minimum wage, mild agrarian reform and a constituent assembly. Zelaya is now general coordinator of the Libre Party, founded in 2011 in reaction to the coup. He is President Xiomara Castro’s husband.

Xiomara Castro’s unsuccessful candidacies for president in 2013 and 2017 encountered electoral fraud and violent attacks orchestrated by the well-ensconced National and Liberal Parties. Her overwhelming electoral victory in 2021 resulted from the association of incumbent president Juan Orlando Hernández and his National Party with corruption and narcotrafficking. Hernández and his brother, convicted on narcotics and weapons charges, are serving long prison terms in the United States. Hernández’s second term was constitutionally illegal.

Current polls give the Libre Party candidate Rixi Moncada an even chance for victory, or a small majority. A plot emerged a month ahead of the voting.

On October 29, Attorney General Johel Zelaya reported he had transferred leaked audio recordings, with transcriptions, to the Public Minister for investigation. Libre Party’s Marlon Ochoa, one of three members of Honduras’ National Electoral Council, discovered them. Each councilor represents a political party. Voices on the recordings allegedly are those of Councilor Cossette López of the........

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