The President of Honduras, Xiomara Castromeets this Friday his first year of term with several pending challenges while he insists on carrying out his crusade against violence, an endemic evil in the country. By taking the reins of the country on January 27, 2022, the wife of ousted President Manuel Zelaya (2006-2009) promised refound the state with a campaign against mafias and insecurityas well as improvements in education, health and employment, problems that stimulate the emigration to the United States of about a thousand Hondurans every day.
Castro became lfirst woman to win the presidency and heads the first left-wing government in the history of Honduras. He won in the first round with 53.2 percent of the vote in an election that had the highest turnout in the country’s history, around 70 percent. In the first year of his government, there were progress in “reorganizing state finances and rescuing public assets seized from private hands”Castro said days ago in Buenos Aires, when participating in the VII Summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac).
From authoritarianism to democracy
Xiomara Castro had a turbulent start to government due to a crisis within the Libertad y Refundación (Libre) party, founded in 2011 by Zelaya, dismissed by the 2009 coup. The event generated consequences in the National Congress when it occurred two boards of directors of simultaneous debates and in different places.
This scenario of uncertainty lasted several days and was the result of disagreements in the government party when a group of 20 deputies ignored a campaign commitment that gave the Salvador de Honduras Party (PSH) the presidency of Congress and decided to assume that instance. , negotiating with the National Party (PN), which has governed the country for the last 12 years. The crisis that was finally overcome was just one example of the dispute for power that is going through the country.
After Haiti and Nicaragua, Honduras is the poorest independent country in Central and Insular America, with more than half of the population beyond the poverty line, according to data from the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (Cepal). It is also one of the most violent countries in the region, particularly for women.
Despite pending challenges, such as the promise to build hospitals, the sociologist Marco Tinoco highlighted that in this first year there were “a transition from an authoritarian regime to a democratic regime, or to higher levels of democracy” with advances in the anti-corruption strategy. “The government has been implementing extreme measures to confront the crime of extortion, which is widespread in Honduras. Citizens value positively that these measures are being implemented, because they see some improvement,” said the professor from the National University.
For his part, the president of the influential Honduran Council for Private Enterprise (Cohep), Mateo Yubrín, said he knew in advance that “this first year was going to be very difficult for the new administration.” “From the private sector we are going to wait and demand results from the beginning of the second year,” said the head of Cohep, who points out that “a more agile government is needed, one that makes quick decisions.”
gang violence
Fulfilling a campaign promise, Castro signed an agreement with the UN on December 15 in New York to create the International Commission Against Corruption and Impunity (CICIH). This initiative, a kind of parallel Prosecutor’s Office aimed at combating crime and mafias inspired by a similar entity that operated in Guatemala between 2007 and 2019, was applauded by the United States.
In addition, the president decreed a state of emergency on December 6 to combat gangs in Honduras, responding to the citizen’s clamor to follow the example of her Salvadoran counterpart Nayib Bukele. The controversial president deployed a policy of rounding up the feared criminal gangs with the arrest, without a warrant, of some 60,000 suspected gang members. His methods receive the majority support of Salvadorans, but are questioned by human rights organizations.
“The right does not rest”
55 percent of Hondurans approve of Xiomara Castro’s management, while 32 percent disapprove of it, according to a recent poll by pollster Cid Gallup. The first president of Honduras considered this Tuesday, at the Celac summit, that the region is experiencing “a critical moment” in which “the right does not rest” and maintains a “permanent aggression” against the peoples of the region.
“The right does not rest. They cynically talk about development and plan coups. Through their media machinery, the economic boycott and political persecution, the lawfare, they maintain a permanent aggression against our peoples”, stressed Castro. In his opinion, this right is the main responsible for the dispossession of natural resources and the deterioration of the environment.
“From the Rio Grande to Patagonia we are waging a common battle against neoliberalismwhich in its wake has only left poverty, hunger and misery,” Castro said during the summit held in Buenos Aires.