Post-electoral tension in Honduras
It has been a tumultuous few days in Honduras. Since voting in elections on Nov. 30, former president Juan Orlando Hernández—convicted in the US last year of drug trafficking and bribery—was pardoned by President Donald Trump and subsequently released. The country has remained on tenterhooks as the results of the presidential election have still not yet been finalized, and Trump has threatened reprisals if his favored candidate fails to win. Adding to the unease is the country's deeply flawed vote-transmission system, which has crashed twice.
The repeated failures of the website set up by Honduran electoral authorities to publish vote tallies have enabled political leaders from across the spectrum to cast doubt on the results. Nevertheless, though the count is ongoing, some results are clear. The left-wing candidate of the ruling LIBRE party, Rixi Moncada, was defeated by a wide margin, even though the party claimed victory late on the day of the voting based on exit polls. It is therefore clear that the next president—and the majority of Congress—will be from one of the two traditional parties, the National Party and Liberal Party, though which one is still up in the air.
The battle is now between the Liberal Party's Salvador Nasralla, a well-known public figure who has run for president several times and served as vice president from 2022-2024, and the National Party's Nasry "Tito" Asfura, the former mayor of Tegucigalpa who received explicit backing from Trump. The two have traded razor-thin leads since the vote: Asfura initially held a narrow lead, but after the first system crash, Nasralla narrowly pulled ahead. By Dec. 4, after another crash and with more than 80% of the votes counted, Asfura was back on top—prompting accusations of fraud from Nasralla.
Trump has also alleged fraud, accusing Honduran electoral authorities of "trying to change the results" after the initial "technical tie." This was far from his only intervention in the electoral process. In the lead-up to the vote, Trump publicly endorsed Asfura, threatened to withhold US aid if he lost, and labelled Nasralla a "communist," even though he is running on a hard-line security agenda inspired by Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele.
These maneuvers paled in comparison, however, to Trump's most egregious move: the shocking pardon of Hernández, known by his initials JOH. JOH was extradited to the United States in 2022 and sentenced in 2024 to 45 years in prison for taking bribes from drug traffickers in exchange for facilitating the transit of hundreds of tons of cocaine. Prosecutors argued that virtually his entire political career—from his time as a lawmaker to his rise to power in 2013—was fueled by drug money. Though he cast himself as a reliable partner in the US war on drugs (and migrants), and enjoyed the support of presidents Obama, Biden and Trump, the facade crumbled after his brother's 2018 arrest in Miami on drug trafficking and weapons charges. Hondurans, fed up with his apparently fraudulent 2017 re-election and pervasive corruption, elected left-wing candidate Xiomara Castro in 2021, and shipped JOH off to the United States the following year.
The pardon, which was granted after Hernandez claimed persecution by the Biden administration, was particularly outrageous given Trump's ongoing threats to escalate deadly strikes on alleged "drug boats," which he has labelled a threat to US national security. The administration's murderous attacks on random vessels have always been morally indefensible and transparently aimed at "regime change" Venezuela, but pardoning a man who once boasted that he would "stuff the drugs up the gringos' noses" pushed the hypocrisy to new extremes.
Despite expectations that the pardon would harm Asfura, the political fallout appears minimal. In fact, amid rising costs of living and a deepening security crisis, some voters cast ballots for Asfura precisely because they associate him with Hernández, whose tenure they now recall more favorably. Whether he ultimately wins or not, Asfura's popularity surged in the lead-up to election day, an effect many observers attribute to Trump's support.
Though the Honduran left will soon be out of power, there was one piece of encouraging news: despite predictions of widespread unrest, the situation has so far remained relatively calm.
From NACLA Update, Dec. 5. Slightly edited.
See our special feature: "The Paradox of Trump's Drug War: Pardons for the Convicted, Drone Strikes for the Suspected"
Tensions rise in Honduras amid 'electoral coup' accusations
Nearly two weeks after Hondurans cast their votes, the country's electoral authorities have yet to declare an official winner. Though a tense calm has held up until now, mounting accusations of fraud, allegations of "coups," and the revelation that gangs exerted pressure to tip the scales have threatened to profoundly destabilize the country.
As things stand, Nasry Asfura, the Trump-backed former mayor of Tegucigalpa, maintains a slight lead over Salvador Nasralla, the centrist former vice president who last week was narrowly ahead. On Dec. 8, Nasralla formally alleged fraud in the vote count, pointing to repeated crashes of the vote-tabulation system and demanding recounts in several departments. "This is theft," he said, accusing Asfura's National Party of "manipulating the system."
Asfura is not the only one to question the legitimacy of the results. Representatives of the ruling left-wing LIBRE party have also denounced the conditions under which the elections were held. Rixi Moncada, LIBRE's candidate who is currently in a distant third place, said earlier this week that her movement "does not recognize the elections held under the interference and coercion of the President of the United States." She called for the results to be annulled, for new elections, and for popular mobilizations to defend the country’s sovereignty. Xiomara Castro, the current president, also alleged that an “electoral coup” was underway. In addition to pointing to the outsized influence of the Trump administration, she denounced manipulation of the results transmission system and the "threats, coercion, and adulteration of the popular will" that characterized the vote.
Moncada's poor showing most likely had less to do with fraud than with the country's ongoing security crisis and corruption scandals, which eroded support for the ruling party. Nevertheless, reporting this week by The Intercept lent credence to LIBRE's claims of widespread intimidation. Numerous sources told the outlet that MS-13 gang members fanned out across Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula to threaten people against supporting LIBRE: they warned voters they would be killed if they backed Moncada, forbade moto-taxis from bringing potential LIBRE voters to the polls, and, in some places, checked ballots inside polling stations to enforce compliance. Though MS-13 was declared a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the Trump administration earlier this year, the gang reportedly intimidated voters into supporting Asfura, Trump's preferred candidate.
For the first time since the election, protesters have begun to take to the streets. On the night of Dec. 9, LIBRE supporters gathered outside the offices of the National Electoral Council in Teguicigalpa in response to a call from Manuel Zelaya, Castro's husband and a former president himself. By Dec. 10, the protests had begun to spread across the country. Even so, Zelaya has not claimed that Moncada was robbed of a victory. In a surprising move that may point to back-channel negotiations between competing parties, Zelaya announced on social media that his party’s internal counts point to a clear victory for Nasralla, Castro's former vice president before his acrimonious split with LIBRE.
Though protests have remained peaceful so far, the longer the vote count drags on, the deeper the political crisis becomes. Hoping to foreclose this possibility, the military vowed to ensure an orderly transfer of power once electoral authorities declare an official winner. Still, given the military's role in the 2009 coup that overthrew Zelaya, its impartiality is far from guaranteed. (NACLA Update)
US State Department revokes visas of Honduran election officials
The US Department of State revoked visas for senior Honduran electoral officials on Dec. 19, tying the sanctions-like immigration action to allegations that the officials impeded Honduras' post-election vote count and thereby "undermin[ed] democracy in Honduras," according to the Department's public statement. In a warning that framed the dispute as a regional security issue, the Department said the US "will not tolerate actions that undermine our national security and our region's stability," and signaled that it is prepared to consider "all appropriate measures" to deter interference with the count.
The Department said it revoked the visa of Mario Morazán pursuant to INA § 221(i) and refused a visa application by Marlon Ochoa under INA § 212(a)(3)(C), while also taking steps to impose restrictions on an unnamed third individual.
The announcement comes as Honduras remains without an official winner nearly three weeks after its Nov. 30 presidential election. Morazán is a magistrate of the Electoral Justice Tribunal and Ochoa is a member of the National Electoral Council. Both officials are affiliated with the governing LIBRE (Liberty & Refoundation) party. (Jurist)