Posted: Nov 28, 2021 14:15 GMT
Hondurans are called to elect the successor to Juan Orlando Hernández, who has ruled the Central American country uninterruptedly since 2014.
The general elections of Honduras of 2021 have started this Sunday at 7:00 (local time), when the different voting points have been opened. Some 5.2 million people are called to participate in this process to elect the successor to Juan Orlando Hernández, who has ruled the Central American country uninterruptedly since 2014.
In addition to voting for the next president, Hondurans will elect three presidential appointees, 20 members of the Central American Parliament, 128 deputies of the National Congress, and 298 mayors and their respective councilors.
Of the 14 candidates for the Presidency, there are two that are emerging as favorites. On the one hand, the leftist candidate of Libertad y Refundación (Libre), Xiomara Castro, wife of former President Manuel Zelaya, who was deposed in a coup in 2009. On the other hand, Nasry ‘Tito’ Asfura, of the ruling National Party, which is currently mayor of the capital, Tegucigalpa.
In the November 2017 elections, there was an abstention of more than 40%. The Opposition Alliance against the Dictatorship party denounced an alleged fraud and the Electoral Observation Mission (EOM) of the Organization of American States (OAS) concluded that the process was characterized “by irregularities and deficiencies.”
For these elections, the OAS has deployed 91 specialists and observers in 17 of the 18 Honduran departments. For its part, some 70 members of the Electoral Observation Mission (EOM) of the European Union monitor the election day.
“It has no secrets”
“All the men and women of Honduras have a reunion with our present and our future as a democratic country,” reads a statement published this Saturday by the nation’s National Electoral Council (CNE).
The organism assures that “it does not have nor will have secrets”, affirming that, “before the doubts implanted in the population it will make public all the information”. It also details that at 20:00 (local time) will be announced preliminary results at the presidential elective level, although it emphasizes that it has a period of 30 days to carry out the definitive general vote.
From the CNE they exhort the political parties, alliances and candidates to act in a responsible and consistent manner with the historical moment that the country is experiencing, which —he points out— requires the commitment of all to achieve a common goal: “clean, free, transparent elections and peaceful “.
Structural problems
The Central American country comes to these elections amid several structural problems that have worsened during the current administration of Hernández, who reached his second term after a controversial Supreme Court decision that allowed him to stand for reelection and despite irregularities that there was the day of the voting.
Among the main indicators that account for the serious situation that Honduras is going through is the poverty, which is estimated to reach 70% of the population at the end of this year, due to the impact of the covid-19 pandemic. Violence is added to this panorama, since the nation registered the highest homicide rate in Central America in 2020 and suffers the consequences of the action of gang groups, many of them dedicated to drug trafficking.
These indicators, together with the 9% drop in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) that was registered in 2020, as well as the food insecurity caused by the recent hurricanes Eta and Iota, have pushed more than ever a phenomenon that any of the winners will have to face in coming to power: irregular migration to the US
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