The first president of Honduras regains power for the left after the coup that separated her husband and the fall from grace of her successor, a US ally who now accuses him of being corrupt and drug traffickers
Well seen, the formula has yielded succulent returns throughout history. Eva and Juan Domingo Perón. Imelda and Ferdinand Marcos, Jiang Qing and Mao Zedong, Cristina and Néstor Kirchner … Even Hillary Clinton brushed the crossbar, if we’re looking great. Saving the distances, the new president of Honduras, the first woman in office in a country reluctant to take the baton from men, has among her many challenges that of demonstrating to her own and strangers that she is not a straw figure made to order. measure of Manuel Zelaya, loving husband and also president overthrown in the 2009 coup when he dared to approach Hugo Chávez, a drift that has never been well seen south of Rio Grande.
Xiomara Castro, 62, has just won the Honduran elections, which has allowed the left to regain power lost 12 years ago. It has done so at a complex time -as everyone in Central American foreign ministries is accustomed to being-, with the country shaken by the pandemic, natural disasters in the form of hurricanes and galloping migratory rates. Well, and with the outgoing president, the conservative Juan Orlando Hernández, questioned for corruption and drug trafficking by no less than the US Administration, which has just convicted his brother and does not rule out extraditing him as well to settle the accounts. A party, let’s go.
“My people, I will not fail you!” With my promises we will return to the democratic order “, it can be read in the Twitter account of Xiomara, that at 62 years of age, he has managed, allied with Salvador Nasralla of the National Opposition Union of Honduras, to impose a program of” re-founding the country. ” and that it even proposes to convene a Constituent Assembly to modify the Magna Carta, in line with what his co-religionist Gabriel Boric proposes in Chile. Also repeal the Organic Law of the Employment and Economic Development Zones, which empowers certain elements to influence fiscal or security policy, going beyond the sovereignty of the country.
In the basket of Xiomara, in addition to the fight against corruption, the ‘narco’ and the death squads, there is respect for women, although his most direct collaborators doubt that it is the moment to face abortion or equal marriage . It is endorsed by a landslide victory by obtaining almost 54% of the votes cast, twenty points above the figures of Nasry Asfura, candidate of the PN and main rival. A triumph loose enough to mute his bitter anti-communist tirade and force him to take a step back two days after the consultation.
Xiomara, originally from a family of landowners, married her cousin Manuel at the age of 16 and they had five children, which did not prevent her from obtaining a degree in Business Administration. Those who have a fondness for newspaper archives will discover that he began his political career in the center-right, gradually stepping down; while she armed the feminine line of the Liberal party. Be that as it may, after the military coup that deposed her husband with the support of Congress, Xiomara became the face of the opposition, leading protests in the center of Tegucigalpa and claiming an ever greater role, the fruits of which she is now reaping.
Zelaya’s wife takes the reins of a country with 9.5 million inhabitants, of which 70% live on the poverty line
Regardless of the influence that Manuel Zelaya exerts on his wife – and that he insists on repeating that he will limit himself to that of a mere “advisor” – several features seem to distinguish this left from the one led by the former Honduran president. We are talking, first, of different formations, since the Liberal Party, which has managed to rise to third place at the polls, is from the center-left, and the one led by Xiomara Castro emerged from the 2009 ‘putsch’ and incorporates peasant and political elements. environmentalists, allowing you to enjoy a broader social base. A moderation scenario is credited – more along the lines of Michelle Bachelet – the presence of Salvador Nasralla, who joined his forces weeks before the elections. Its contribution is very relevant, since it allows the new executive to welcome in its bosom from businessmen and industrialists to the middle classes.
America’s backyard
What role is the United States going to play in this scenario of twists and turns? Well, it is not very clear, since although Xiomara has been branded by his rivals as “communist” and Zelaya’s background does not invite, precisely, to lower his guard, the White House needs an interlocutor in its backyard, something for which Today, it cannot count on Ortega’s Nicaragua, nor on El Salvador or Guatemala. And although the new Honduran government wants to shake off the colonialist efforts of the United States, no one is unaware of their economic dependence on it, and in this context the change of scene that Biden’s arrival has brought about is well received.
It is precisely Uncle Sam who has mowed the ground under the feet of Xiomara Castro’s rivals. He has done so by sheathing Tony Hernández, the outgoing president’s brother, in a prisoner’s gray jumpsuit and sentencing him to life imprisonment, after a New York court found him guilty of bringing 185 tons of cocaine into the United States, as well as of facilitate bribes, among others to Juan Orlando, from the “Chapo” Guzmán and the Sinaloa cartel to “grease” the traffic of white powder. In light of recent events, it would not be surprising if the former Honduran president were called to testify, although for now no charge points to him directly. Xiomara watches as they do her dirty work.
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