Hondurans are voting Sunday in presidential elections that could oust the scandal-hit ruling party and end the nation's alliance with Taiwan.
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Xiomara Castro, the wife of a former president who was sworn in a coup, is leading in polls as she tries to end 12 years of rule by the conservative National Party. She spooked investors by saying that capitalism hasn't worked for most Hondurans and calling for a radical overhaul of the nation's failed Neoliberal model. Some businesses in the capital, Tegucigalpa, boarded up windows for fear of the violent unrest that followed the last election in 2017 that was widely considered to be fraudulent.
Honduras s 2030 dollar bond touched a record low to trade at 99.7 cents on the dollar last month as Castro's campaign gained momentum.
Hugo Noe Pino, an economist who worked on Castro's government plan, said that the candidate would consider a plan with the International Monetary Fund if the conditions were right, and if the pace at which the deficit would be cut was not too burdensome.
People always invent these comparisons with Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, but I always said that the country we d like to resemble is Costa Rica, Noe Pino said Friday in an interview in Tegucigalpa.
Castro wants to tax large fortunes, introduce a new welfare payment for poor households and senior citizens, and allow the central bank to lend to the treasury in emergencies. Her rhetoric has been more moderate than in previous campaigns, and some investors are waiting to see how she ll govern if she wins, said Risa Grais Targow, an analyst at Eurasia Group.
Honduras is one of the 15 remaining countries that have full diplomatic relations with Taiwan rather than the People's Republic of China. If she wins, Castro proposed the idea of switching to Beijing, though local business groups have expressed concerns over the idea, which needs to be taken into account, even though Noe Pino said it isn't a done deal.
The mayor of the capital city and son of Palestine immigrants, Nasry Asfura, is the second to polling second. Asfura refers to himself as Papi a la orden, Spanish for Daddy at your service, and boasts that he doesn't use a smartphone. He promises to increase agricultural jobs, trade and tourism by pave thousands of miles of roads.
Asfura is under investigation for the embezzlement of city funds, though he says he is innocent.
The results are expected to be released on Sunday evening, with the polls open from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m.
A survey conducted by a local pollster found that unemployment and corruption are the biggest grievances of the voters. The government of President Juan Orlando Hernandez has been plagued by scandal and accusations of ties to organized crime, especially after his brother was sentenced to life in prison in the U.S.
Hernandez said the charges were outrageous and based on false testimony of confessed murderers. The U.S. was a closely allied party to the ruling party, though Hernandez's conviction has soured this relationship.
Crime, poverty and natural disasters have made Honduras one of the main sources of migration to the U.S. southern border, which has become one of the biggest crises faced by the administration of President Joe Biden. A record 321,000 Hondurans were detained in the U.S. in the fiscal year 2021, ending September after back-to-back hurricanes at the end of 2019 and a stagnant economy after the Pandemic lockdowns. That is a 22% increase over the same period a year ago.
Yani Rosenthal, a candidate for Honduras'Liberal Party, said the outflows of migrants have sapped Honduras of many of its best people.
Rosenthal said it was a super brain drain and that it was a super brain drain in an interview in the capital. The government invests a lot of money in education, and the U.S. gets the return on that investment, not Honduras. The economy will expand by 4.9% this year after a 9% slump last year, according to a forecast from the International Monetary Fund. The country exports coffee, textiles and bananas, with the U.S. as its biggest trading partner.
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