Honduras to head to polls in November
Tegucigalpa, May 27 (EFE).- Honduras officials announced Thursday that the country will hold its 11th general election since its return to democracy on Nov. 28, in the midst of marked political, social and economic crises and after the approval of a new electoral law.
Fourteen political parties will participate, of which only three, according to opinion polls, have the possibility of displacing the current president, Juan Orlando Hernández, who will conclude his mandate on Jan. 27, 2022.
The call for elections was made Thursday by the three heads of the National Electoral Council (CNE) on national radio and television networks.
The CNE’s presiding counselor Ana Paola Hall said that the organization is committed to “guaranteeing political rights in a clean general election” and that they have set themselves the goal of meeting and overcoming society’s demands against fraud, exercising “transparency and electoral justice.”
Analysts consider that to remove the National Party from power, an alliance is needed, at least between the parties with the greatest political power, which has not been possible so far due to their presidential candidates who have not wanted to compromise.
The candidates with the biggest chances of victory are Nasry Asfur, of the ruling National Party (conservative); Xiomara Castro of Liberty and Refoundation (Free, left), and Yany Rosenthal from Liberal.
Salvador Nasralla will also run for the third time. In September 2020 he founded the Savior Party of Honduras, after having failed in the general elections of 2013 and 2017 with the Anti-Corruption Party.
Nasralla assured that he has more than a million supporters and that he is “the only one who can remove the corrupt and drug traffickers from power.”
On Thursday he announced that he is creating an alliance with the minority Innovation and Unity-Social Democratic Party (Pinu-Sd), after which Pinu-Sd’s candidate Deputy Doris Gutiérrez withdrew from the presidential race.
The call for the next election was made two days after parliament approved the new Electoral Law that various sectors and the international community have been demanding for several years.
The new law came into force Thursday after it was sanctioned on Wednesday by the Honduran president.
The previous day, congresswoman Doris Gutiérrez told EFE that “the new Electoral Law does not respond to the expectations of the Honduran people, who for the most part wanted a second round,” which will not be held.
She added that Hondurans also wanted “an electronic vote, a transparent transmission of guaranteed results and citizenship of the polling stations to prevent the (three majority) political parties from manipulating this process, which is a citizen process.”
According to analyst projections, any candidate who wins the presidency will do so with little support due to disenchantment of the public, most of which have not seen an improvement in living conditions 40 years after returning to democracy. EFE
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