TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — Hondurans voted Sunday to elect a new president only days after President Trump intervened in a close race with an endorsement of one candidate and announced that he would pardon a former Honduran president convicted of trafficking cocaine into the United States.
At a voting site in the capital, the country’s major parties were represented outside with tables, banners, flags and music. Several dozen people lined up outside the gate to the neighborhood school and were allowed in about 30 minutes after the official start of voting.
In addition to a new president, voters will elect a new Congress, as well as hundreds of local positions.
Main candidates
Among the five presidential candidates on the ballot, polls indicated three had a chance to win and were finishing in close competition. They are:
• Rixi Moncada, who served as finance and later as defense secretary in the current administration of President Xiomara Castro and is running for the social democratic LIBRE, or Liberty and Re-foundation, party.
• Salvador Nasralla, who is making his fourth bid for the presidency, this time as the candidate for the conservative Liberal Party.
• Former Tegucigalpa Mayor Nasry “Tito” Asfura, the Trump-backed candidate who carries the mantle of the conservative National Party.
Moncada promises to “democratize” an economy still defined by extreme wealth and poverty. Nasralla casts himself as the outsider who can clean up the country’s endemic corruption. And Asfura is trying to restore the National Party as a pro-business force tarnished by previous bouts of presidential corruption. Asfura himself has been accused of embezzling public funds in the past, allegations that he denies.
Campaign issues
Honduras’ security situation has improved in recent years as homicides across the region continue to fall, but it still has Central America’s highest homicide rate. Hondurans say security and jobs remain their top priorities, despite an economy that has strengthened during Castro’s administration.
The presidential contest had mostly focused on candidates trading accusations of vote manipulation until last week when Trump endorsed Asfura while attacking his opponents, the latest signal of the Trump administration’s renewed focus on Latin America. Trump threatened to withhold U.S. aid if Asfura doesn’t win.
Trump’s intervention
Trump shocked Hondurans and many other observers by announcing Friday that he would pardon ex-President Juan Orlando Hernández, who is serving a 45-year sentence in a U.S. prison for helping drug traffickers moving cocaine to the United States.
It was unclear what influence Trump’s move would have on the election, but it was the latest show of the U.S. government’s willingness to involve itself in the region and came at a time of already heightened tensions because of the U.S. military buildup in the Caribbean and Trump’s threats against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
Trump has said the U.S. military campaign in the Caribbean is an anti-narcotics effort, making his announcement of a pardon for a convicted drug trafficker all the more startling.
Hondurans were left unnerved by the sudden U.S. attention, and hoping at a minimum for a peaceful election.
Walking by a polling site in the capital, Ruben Darío Molina, a 55-year-old security guard, said that he wouldn’t vote Sunday because he had to work. But he had choice words for Trump, whose administration deported him back to his native Honduras a month ago after 20 years living in the United States.
He had worked in landscaping in Miami, but was picked up by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement one day in the street, separating him from his U.S. citizen wife and son.
“I don’t believe in politicians,” he said. “Politicians are garbage. They use you like a ladder” to move up, he said.
Divergent views
Cristian Zelaya, a 42-year-old systems engineer, said that his priority in the voting booth was “to try to rescue the country from a future like Venezuela.” He said that he wanted to get the “communists” out, in reference to LIBRE — the governing social democratic party, which is not communist — which he said made big promises, but didn’t deliver.
He praised Trump’s decision to pardon Hernández — despite his serious crimes — whom he considered a good president, but said it had no impact on his decision.
In another part of the capital, Carlos Alberto Figueroa, a 71-year-old retiree, said he wanted Moncada to continue Castro’s work, which he said had already resulted in “development, a better economy and security.” He too discounted Trump’s influence on the outcome.
Nancy Serrano, a 20-year-old voting for the first time, said that the issue top of mind for her was: “Enough with corruption.”
Serrano is studying to be a teacher, and she worries that the prevalence of corruption limits opportunities for the youth and eats away at the economy.
Election details
In announcing the start of voting Sunday, National Electoral Council President Ana Paola Hall called on the candidates to respect the rules to not declare victory before the council confirms a winner.
Polls were due to close at 5 p.m. Sunday. The council planned to provide preliminary results Sunday night but has up to 30 days to officially announce the final result.
More than 4,000 Honduran and foreign election observers had fanned out to the nearly 6,000 polling places across the country.
Sherman and González write for the Associated Press.
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