{"id":414155,"date":"2025-11-30T02:43:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-30T02:43:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/414155\/"},"modified":"2025-11-30T02:43:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-30T02:43:10","slug":"hondurans-face-election-as-donald-trump-stirs-political-waters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/414155\/","title":{"rendered":"Hondurans face election as Donald Trump stirs political waters"},"content":{"rendered":"

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) \u2014 The day before Honduras elects a new president<\/a>, suddenly the main topics of conversation here shifted from domestic matters to U.S. President Donald Trump<\/a> and the former Honduran president he said he will pardon.<\/p>\n

Trump cannonballed into the deep end of Honduran politics this week, first endorsing presidential candidate Nasry \u201cTito\u201d Asfura from the conservative National Party and then announcing the pardon of ex-President Juan Orlando Hern\u00e1ndez \u2014 of the same party \u2014 sentenced to 45 years<\/a> in a U.S. prison for helping move tons of cocaine.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s influence<\/p>\n

Until the U.S. president\u2019s splashy entrance, the main concern around the election was that the three candidates with an apparent chance to win were all undermining the process\u2019 credibility, warning of manipulation and saying they wouldn\u2019t recognize a preliminary result that didn\u2019t go their way.<\/p>\n

On Saturday, Hondurans were trying to sort out who would benefit from Trump\u2019s actions and what exactly he was trying to do.<\/p>\n

Wild card<\/p>\n

The endorsement of Asfura seemed straightforward enough: one conservative backing another. But throwing in Hern\u00e1ndez, someone whose lengthy U.S. federal trial in a New York City courtroom was covered daily in the Honduran media, was a wild card.<\/p>\n

It could hurt Asfura by reminding voters of the depths of the corruption of his party. Or it could help him by firing up the National Party\u2019s base.<\/p>\n

Trump also dismissed the other two leading candidates Rixi Moncada of the governing social democrat Libre Party and Salvador Nasralla of the Liberal Party, who he called a \u201cborderline Communist.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eve of the election<\/p>\n

Moncada, the former finance and defense secretary in the outgoing administration of President Xiomara Castro, pounced on the U.S. president\u2019s intervention.<\/p>\n

Before she stepped to the podium before cheering supporters, a giant screen played video loops of Hern\u00e1ndez\u2019s arrest.<\/p>\n

Moncada framed it as Honduras\u2019 organized crime interests and the country\u2019s handful of economically dominant families deciding in the days before the election that their candidates wouldn\u2019t be able to beat her, so they went to Washington for help.<\/p>\n

It was Castro who had Hern\u00e1ndez arrested months after he left office, something Moncada said that Honduras\u2019 powerful economic interests allowed, because he was no longer of use to them. But now, desperate, Trump was sending who she called \u201cthe biggest capo in the history of Honduras\u201d back to try to energize conservative voters.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat has happened yesterday (the pardon) is a new crime and that new crime we will judge tomorrow (Sunday) at the ballot box,\u201d Moncada said to cheers. \u201cThey won\u2019t come back.\u201d<\/p>\n

The night before, Nasralla tried to use Trump\u2019s interference to bolster his own cultivated outsider status, even in his fourth bid for the presidency. <\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t answer to dark pacts, or corrupt networks or criminals who have killed our people,\u201d he said Friday night.<\/p>\n

Divisive figure<\/p>\n

It was all giving Hondurans a lot to talk about Saturday.<\/p>\n

At an intersection in a wealthier Tegucigalpa neighborhood, Adalid \u00c1vila sold oranges, bananas, pineapples and rambutans from the back of a pickup truck. About 100 yards away a banner fluttered from a highway overpass with a picture of Hern\u00e1ndez the day he was handed over to U.S. authorities in 2022. <\/p>\n

It warned people not to forget allegations that he had also diverted money from social security as president.<\/p>\n

But \u00c1vila said a lot of people still think highly of Hern\u00e1ndez, so he didn\u2019t think Trump\u2019s pardon would have much effect on the election. <\/p>\n

Endorsement of Asfura<\/p>\n

The 21-year-old vendor said that he planned to vote for Asfura, who he remembered as Tegucigalpa\u2019s mayor for building tunnels and bridges \u2013 including the one the banner hung from — that somewhat relieved its crushing traffic.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s hardworking, he inspires you,\u201d \u00c1vila said. He did think that Trump\u2019s endorsement could help Asfura, because Hondurans know how much help the U.S. can be, he said.<\/p>\n

Most of all, \u00c1vila wants Honduras\u2019 next president to be \u201chonorable,\u201d to work for the people and not forget the campaign promises, he said. He worried that the leading candidates won\u2019t accept Sunday\u2019s result.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople aren\u2019t tolerant in this country,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s always revolution, because no one likes to lose.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hope for peaceful vote<\/p>\n

Melany Mart\u00ednez, a 30-year-old nurse, waited in a long line Saturday morning for a \u201cbaleada,\u201d a Honduran delicacy of beans, cheese and cream wrapped in a soft, fresh tortilla.<\/p>\n

She called Trump\u2019s endorsement of Asfura an \u201calert\u201d to Hondurans and she wondered what the U.S. president\u2019s angle was.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the people\u2019s decision must be taken here, because in the end we\u2019re the citizens,\u201d she said. Trump\u2019s pardoning of Hern\u00e1ndez struck her as wrong, because he had been convicted of a crime.<\/p>\n

She too hoped for a peaceful election with a respected result. But she had heard talk in the street about the chance of trouble and even suggestions to stock up on household essentials.<\/p>\n

As a nurse, she wants the next president to focus on education and health, two areas that have been chronically ignored.<\/p>\n

Oliver Eraso, a law professor at the National Autonomous University of Honduras, said that he didn\u2019t expect Trump\u2019s interference to have a big impact on voters\u2019 decisions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe social and collective behavior of the electorate was already defined a week or two ago, especially when it comes to the National Party and the Liberal Party,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Marlon Gonz\u00e1lez contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) \u2014 The day before Honduras elects a new president, suddenly the main topics of conversation…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":414156,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[45816,64,1613,1226,69,90,57,6500,193527,1612,90048,194452,50,130635,80,193529,194451,67,132,68,93,107,193528],"class_list":{"0":"post-414155","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"category-us","9":"tag-2024-united-states-presidential-election","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-central-america","12":"tag-conservatism","13":"tag-donald-trump","14":"tag-elections","15":"tag-general-news","16":"tag-honduras","17":"tag-juan-orlando-hernandez","18":"tag-latin-america","19":"tag-law-and-order","20":"tag-melany-martnez","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-pardons-and-commutations","23":"tag-politics","24":"tag-salvador-nasralla","25":"tag-tegucigalpa","26":"tag-united-states","27":"tag-unitedstates","28":"tag-us","29":"tag-washington-news","30":"tag-world-news","31":"tag-xiomara-castro"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115636353659724094","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=414155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414155\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/414156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}