Media Contact
Adam Allington
Honduras’ two presidential front runners, Nasry Asfura and Salvador Nasralla, remain locked in a virtual tie. Donald Trump has threatened to cut aid to Honduras if Asfura, of the right-wing National Party, does not win the election. This comes after Trump said he would also pardon former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez who was serving a 45-year prison sentence for drug trafficking and firearms charges.
Raymond Craib
Professor of history
Raymond Craib, a historian of modern Latin America, says Trump’s interest in Honduras is more about U.S. business interests, than democracy.
Craib says:
“The elections in Honduras are a referendum on many things, for sure, with crime, corruption, and the economy being major issues. But we should not ignore the role of foreign investors and U.S. officials. The spectre of the 2009 coup d’etat that deposed Manuel Zelaya, husband of current President Xiomara Castro, hovers over this election. Implicitly backed by the Obama administration, that coup ushered in a decade of rule by the National Party of Honduras [NPH] and a further embrace of neoliberal policies and libertarian ideologues.
“On dubious legal foundations, the NPH created Special Employment and Economic Zones with near-sovereign powers, attracting international investors and libertarian tech-bros who aspired to build private cities in various parts of the country. Those have been challenged by Castro’s administration and their legality revoked by the Supreme Court, and one can imagine free private city investors would like nothing more than to see a return of the NPH.
“Meanwhile, Trump’s potential pardoning of former president and NPH member Juan Orlando Hernandez, a convicted drug trafficker, and his public backing of NPH presidential candidate Nasry Asfura has further muddied the electoral waters. Overall, of this lurks the on-going antagonism directed at Venezuela and, unsurprisingly, Cuba by U.S. administration higher-ups.”
