Honduras’ electoral authority paused in the publication of preliminary results from Sunday’s presidential election, with a partial tally showing leftist opposition candidate Xiomara Castro on track for a landslide.
Castro had 54% support, compared with 34% for the ruling party’s Nasry Asfura, with 51% of ballots tallied, according to the electoral authority. The authority stopped updating the tally from its rapid vote count system at 6:55 a.m. local time.
Kelvin Aguirre, the chief magistrate in charge of the electoral process, told reporters in the capital, Tegucigalpa, on Monday that a definitive final count of all ballots was about to begin and that an official winner will be announced before Dec. 28, in accordance with Honduran law. The quick count will be updated once additional tally sheets have been uploaded to the system, the electoral authority’s press office said, in reply to written questions.
Castro and her supporters are already claiming victory though, and as of Monday evening, Asfura hadn’t conceded. The third-place candidate, Yani Rosenthal, did concede. Turnout was about 68%.
Some of Castro’s past comments have spooked investors, and the country’s $600 million of dollar bonds due in 2030 fell 0.8 cent on Monday, sending the yield up to 5.8%.
Castro, 62, has pledged to tax the rich, overhaul the nation’s “failed neoliberal model” and consider whether to end its alliance with Taiwan.
A Castro victory would make her the nation’s first female president and end 12 years of conservative rule by the National Party, which has been roiled by scandals linking it to organized crime and cocaine trafficking. Her supporters danced and waved red flags Sunday night outside the headquarters of her Libre party in the capital, singing, “They’re going, they’re going, now they’re going.”
Although the electoral authority hasn’t declared a winner, Castro made a victory speech to her jubilant supporters.
“Out with drug trafficking and organized crime,” Castro said. “No more poverty and distress in Honduras.”
Crime, poverty and natural disasters have made the Central American nation one of the main sources of migration at 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 2021 fiscal year that ended in September, a 22% increase over the same period a year earlier.
Memories of 2017
Honduras is one of the 15 remaining countries that has full official diplomatic relations with Taiwan rather than with the People’s Republic of China. Castro has said she’ll consider switching to Beijing if she wins.
The pause in the vote count revived memories of the 2017 election, when the electoral authority tallied 58% of votes within nine hours of polls closing, then took three weeks to finally declare a winner different than the one who’d been leading in the partial count. The Organization of American States described that election as “low quality” and said they couldn’t confirm the results.
Manuel Rodriguez, a 34-year-old doctor, said Castro’s 20-percentage point margin is large enough to prevent any attempts at fraud.
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