Honduras general election - November 28, 2021 🇭🇳

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

Is restaurant guy expected to become the actual mayor or just rule from the shadows? What legal issue (or whatever other thing) is preventing him from running and/or serving himself?

[Hash]

Is restaurant guy expected to become the actual mayor or just rule from the shadows? What legal issue (or whatever other thing) is preventing him from running and/or serving himself?

Roberto Contreras is expected to be the actual mayor, his brother is just the stand-in because Roberto's registration was rejected by the CNE. The CNE rejected his registration because he had participated in the internal primary process as a mayoral pre-candidate for the Liberal Party (after dropping a putative presidential run for the same party) - although he withdrew from the Liberal primary in January to run as an independent. The CNE's decision against him was adopted with the votes of the National and Liberal parties' councillors, and one would assume that the Liberal Party's representative on the CNE, Ana Paola Hall, might have something against Contreras because he's a big critic of a major PPP in which Hall's cousin controls a key stake.

Roberto Contreras is a pretty interesting guy - and even though the National Party has, of course, called him 'the communist candidate', he's not quite what you'd expect from a candidate supported by Libre (two of the three pillars of his message are 'let entrepreneurs work and let businessmen work'). There's a good profile about him on Contracorriente.

[PSOL]

The army and civil service needs to be purged of the Nazi mafia ASAP. The deep state built off narcotics and greenbacks would love a repeat of 2009, or at minimum block any sort of meaningful change from the shadows. If they succeed in Honduras, the only nation to not have a civil war ending in a draw and a bulwark launching pad for CIA shenanigans, then it means that the broad front tactic in Central America could work in Guatemala and El Salvador to at minimum bring around a regular liberal democracy.

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

Is restaurant guy expected to become the actual mayor or just rule from the shadows? What legal issue (or whatever other thing) is preventing him from running and/or serving himself?

Roberto Contreras is expected to be the actual mayor, his brother is just the stand-in because Roberto's registration was rejected by the CNE. The CNE rejected his registration because he had participated in the internal primary process as a mayoral pre-candidate for the Liberal Party (after dropping a putative presidential run for the same party) - although he withdrew from the Liberal primary in January to run as an independent. The CNE's decision against him was adopted with the votes of the National and Liberal parties' councillors, and one would assume that the Liberal Party's representative on the CNE, Ana Paola Hall, might have something against Contreras because he's a big critic of a major PPP in which Hall's cousin controls a key stake.

Roberto Contreras is a pretty interesting guy - and even though the National Party has, of course, called him 'the communist candidate', he's not quite what you'd expect from a candidate supported by Libre (two of the three pillars of his message are 'let entrepreneurs work and let businessmen work'). There's a good profile about him on Contracorriente.

Thanks for the info! Your contributions are, as always, highly valuable.

[oddfellowslocal151]

I see Libre has a lot of different factions- any sense what the internal differences are, what the makeup of the party is?

[Hash]

I see Libre has a lot of different factions- any sense what the internal differences are, what the makeup of the party is?

Unfortunately, I don't know very much and it's very hard to find much details about the internal factions in the media or anywhere. I'm unsure to what extent these factions may reflect actual internal differences or different leftist groups, or if they're more personalist (and ephemeral) fan clubs like the factions in the other two parties have been.

In the primaries, 6 of the 9 recognized factions supported Xiomara Castro and these factions won the vast majority of the congressional candidacies. Going through primary results and names, M-28 Poder para Vos appears to be largely made up of Zelaya loyalists (and family members) who, like him, used to be Liberals -- the faction includes Jorge Cálix (prominent deputy and 'influencer', top candidate in Francisco Morazán, accused of inflating votes in the primaries) as well as Xiomara 'Pichu' Zelaya (Mel's daughter, likely deputy-elect in Francisco Morazán) and Carlos Zelaya (Mel's brother, incumbent deputy for Olancho and Libre caucus leader).

The FRP (Fuerza de Refundación Popular), on the other hand, seems to be made up of people with a left-wing/activist background who rallied around Zelaya when he shifted to the left during his presidency, even though some of them had opposed him earlier. The FRP's top candidate in Francisco Morazán is incumbent deputy Juan Barahona, a former communist and veteran union leader always sporting a Cuban revolutionary hat, who led the fight against the CAFTA and initially opposed Zelaya but then supported his ideological mutation. The FRP also includes Rafael Alegría (former deputy who is likely to return to Congress), an agrarian leader and founding member of La Vía Campesina, who also initially had strong doubts about Zelaya (in good part because of the Horcones massacre and Zelaya's background as a landowner/rancher in Olancho).

Pueblo Organizado en Resistencia (POR) and Somos+ are the two other major factions (by congressional candidacies), both of which also supported Xiomara in the primaries. POR's top candidate in Francisco Morazán is incumbent deputy Jari Dixon, a former anti-corruption prosecutor who was famous for participating in a 2008 hunger strike against a Nationalist attorney general who froze corruption investigations, and was fired in 2009 for opposing the coup. He's also one of Nayib Bukele's biggest fans in Honduras, so I question how left-wing he actually is. POR is led by Mauricio Ramos, owner of UNE TV, which is basically the party's TV channel.

One of Somos+' prominent candidates is Francisco Morazán is incumbent deputy Hugo Noé Pino, a former Liberal economist who briefly served as finance minister in the first year of Zelaya's administration. The faction is led by coffee cooperative leader Dagoberto Suazo.

Movimiento 5 de julio, Honduras Libre and Nueva Corriente are the factions which opposed Xiomara in the primaries with their candidates Nelson Ávila, Wilfredo Méndez and Carlos Eduardo Reina respectively. Ávila, who had also previously run in the 2017 primaries, is an economist, academic and former presidential advisor who didn't miss an opportunity to advertise his educational credentials and diplomas during the primaries. Although he won only 11.5% (second place), his result was described as a 'phenomenon'. He has been very critical of the Zelaya clan's control over the party, but nevertheless begrudgingly supported Castro, particularly following the alliance with Nasralla, which he had been pushing for all along.

Wilfredo Méndez is a human rights lawyer and former head of a human rights research centre (which he allegedly left in 2019 because of a sexual harassment complaint). Like Ávila, he alleged fraud in the Libre primaries in March, and later endorsed Salvador Nasralla and finally Yani Rosenthal (after Nasralla dropped out). The other prominent figure in Honduras Libre is outgoing deputy María Luisa Borjas (who lost in the primaries), controversially found guilty of defamation and slander in 2019 for accusing the Atala family of being the intellectual authors of Berta Cáceres' murder.

Carlos Eduardo Reina is the scion of a major Liberal political clan (Reina family)- the son of Jorge Arturo Reina (former president of Congress and UN ambassador under Zelaya's administration, who opposed the coup) and nephew of former president Carlos Roberto Reina. He finished third in the primaries with around 5%, and unlike Ávila and Méndez he gracefully conceded and endorsed Xiomara Castro.

But again all this is based on very little information and largely my own inferences and uneducated analysis.

[Hash]

Nasry Asfura has conceded defeat by going to meet Xiomara in person and hugging her.



The OAS, United States, Spain, Costa Rica, Argentina and others have also congratulated her, making it even more official.

El Heraldo has a projection of the makeup of Congress on the current (preliminary, incomplete) numbers and it'd give:

Libre 50 seats
National 42 seats
Liberal 22 seats
PSH 12 seats (Nasralla cult)
DC 1 seat (old tiny party for sale, usually a Nationalist ally)
PAC 1 seat (Nasralla's first party, now they hate him and he hates them, led by some crazy Christian lady, not sure if she won a seat herself)

APH ('right-wing' party led by the 2009 coupist general, usually a Nationalist ally) and UD (fake 'left-wing' satellite of the Nationalists) seem to have lost all their seats.

https://www.elheraldo.hn/interactivos/1504656-529/resultados-congreso-nacional-honduras-proyeccion

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

El Heraldo has a projection of the makeup of Congress on the current (preliminary, incomplete) numbers and it'd give:

Libre 50 seats
National 42 seats
Liberal 22 seats
PSH 12 seats (Nasralla cult)
DC 1 seat (old tiny party for sale, usually a Nationalist ally)
PAC 1 seat (Nasralla's first party, now they hate him and he hates them, led by some crazy Christian lady, not sure if she won a seat herself)

How likely is that configuration to pass anything meaningful? I assume everything depends on the Liberals.

[PSOL]

What do you mean that UD is a Nationalist satellite?

[Hash]

How likely is that configuration to pass anything meaningful? I assume everything depends on the Liberals.

Yeah, it depends on the Liberals - I'd need to check how many Liberal deputies are from Luis Zelaya's faction, the most inclined to work with Libre off the bat - and specifically how the Liberals reorient themselves after this horrible defeat (four defeats in a row, each time doing worse). But you also have the factor of the PSH, which currently is allied with Libre, but whose leader is known for his contradictions and long record of breaking up alliances (and certainly has a hot/cold relation with Zelaya). I haven't looked who the PSH' deputies include besides Nasralla's young wife and some ex-PAC evangelical ex-football player.

What do you mean that UD is a Nationalist satellite?

Because it is, even though it still denies it.

After the 2009 coup, the UD has largely functioned as a satellite of the Nationalists. Its 2009 candidate, César Ham, joined Lobo's reconciliation government as head of the National Agrarian Institute. Its sole deputy in the outgoing Congress, Mario Noé Villafranca (a dissident Liberal, health minister under the post-coup Micheletti government, who defected back to the Liberals in 2020 in an unsuccessful attempt to run for mayor of Distrito Central), was one of the vice-presidents of Congress, i.e. part of the Nationalist-led congressional leadership. Granted, he doesn't seem to have been entirely in lockstep with the Nationalist mafia, but still.

One of the party's top candidates for Congress in Franciso Morazán was Miguel Caballero Leiva, an openly gay showbusiness guy, who had been a Nationalist for decades - he was denied a congressional candidacy for the National Party in 2017, for being openly gay (either because of pressure from the Catholic Church's hierarchy or evangelical groups in the National Party). He still has pretty conservative views (except on gay rights), in favour of ZEDEs and presidential re-election. In Distrito Central, UD was allied with Nationalist candidate David Chávez - a guy who famously ran an aggressive red scare smear campaign about 'communists will murder unborn babies/communist Xiomara Castro will rip babies out of mothers' wombs with knives'.

[Hash]

An early look at mayoral results in detail:

In Distrito Central, as mentioned, Jorge Aldana (Libre-PSH) defeated David Chávez (National). Now with two-thirds reporting, Aldana is winning 48% to 32.9% for Chávez. It is a major victory for Libre as the capital has been ruled by the Nationalists since 1986, with only one exception (a Liberal mayor 1994-1997), and Nasry Asfura was the outgoing mayor, and David Chávez was clearly a rising star in the National Party (young, telegenic/social media savvy attack dog with all the right family connections) - see my posts on the last page.

Aldana was an outgoing councillor who already lost (in a landslide) to papi a la orden in 2017. As councillor he was criticized for his meek attitude towards Asfura's corruption and abuses, rarely (if ever) denouncing the outgoing mayor. Liberal candidate Eduardo Martell - who came from Luis Zelaya's rival faction and therefore didn't campaign with Yani Rosenthal - won 10%. He applauded the local alliance between Libre and the PSH, but ultimately wasn't part of it, because he argued that he should be the candidate as he won more votes than Aldana in the primaries.

In San Pedro Sula (Cortés), as mentioned, incumbent Nationalist mayor Armando Calidonio lost his bid for a third term to opposition candidate Rolando(Roberto) Contreras in a landslide. With 60% reporting, Contreras has 62.3% against only 22.6% for the incumbent - a huge opposition victory in line with presidential results in the city (Xiomara has nearly 63%). Liberal candidate 'Toñito' Rivera, a councillor since 2010 (who was Libre's candidate in 2013 and 2017), won just 10.1%.

Contreras, as mentioned earlier, is a popular and eccentric/unpredictable businessman - owner of a chain of restaurants called Power Chicken, he campaigned with a yellow plastic chicken and is known as el pollo (the chicken) or el pollo loco (the crazy chicken). He gained popularity and notoriety during the pandemic by protesting against high utility prices (chaining himself to a chair, showing up handcuffed in a park to protest utility prices), and giving away hundreds of free chickens and masks in poor neighbourhoods (right before announcing a presidential candidacy...). His critics say he's unstable and self-interested: a Nationalist candidate said he once tied himself up to the mayoral office for a hunger strike but got up and left 3 hours later once the media had taken their pictures... He's changed parties very often - was a Liberal in 2013, after flirting with Nasralla's gang, announced a presidential candidacy for the Liberals  before withdrawing to Yani's mayoral candidate in the Liberal primaries and then announcing an independent mayoral candidacy on his own. He later became the candidate of an heterogeneous opposition alliance with Libre and PSH, which both withdrew their candidates. The Nationalists tried to call him a communist, to which he responded that he'd rather be called a communist, which he isn't, than to be called a thief, which they (Nats) are.

Calidonio is a nasty guy. He's the son of former army intelligence colonel Armando Calidonio who, in the 1970s, was who was named in a list of military officers accused of collaborating with famous early drug trafficker Juan Ramón Matta Ballesteros in the kidnapping and murder of the Ferrari siblings, Matta Ballesteros' first criminal allies and business partners. Armando Calidonio jr. served as viceminister of security (2002-2005, 2010-2011), security minister (2005-2006) and member of Congress (2011-2014) before becoming mayor of the country's industrial centre in 2014. From his time in the security sector, he and others were behind the failed hardline 'zero tolerance' on gangs policy, and from that time he's carried some dark ghosts of alleged ties to drug trafficking. He narrowly won his first mayoral election in 2013 by a margin of just over 1,600 votes, amidst allegations of fraud, while in 2017 he won re-election with 33% but a 10-point margin because the opposition vote was divided in three. He's credited with adopting an urban planning master plan (giving attention to a major issue neglected by predecessors) and building a lot of infrastructure, though opponents say that's been concentrated where it's most visible (downtown) while low-income peripheries are ignored again. But he's also led a very closed-doors, autocratic administration.

In Choloma (Cortés), the country's third-largest city on the outskirts of San Pedro Sula (a major maquiladora industrial town), four term incumbent yanista Liberal mayor Leonardo 'Polo' Crivelli has lost re-election to Libre by a big margin: at 53% reporting, he's losing 27.3% to 40.9%. Crivelli is a classic clientelist cacique, both admired and hated, who was first elected way back in 2005, and he's a longtime ally of the Rosenthal clan. He's faced scandals in Honduras and the US. In Honduras, he was arrested and suspended from office for 2 months in 2020 for a corruption and fraud case, which is continuing. In the US, his name was mentioned in Geovanny Fuentes' drug case - Fuentes allegedly contributed to one of his mayoral campaigns, and in return Crivelli passed along information about police operations. The creation of a ZEDE is a major issue in Choloma. In November, pressured by local opposition (and probably electoral circumstances), the council voted to declare Choloma 'free of ZEDE'. Earlier, however, Crivelli's opponents claimed that the mayor was silent on the issue because of an alleged alliance with JOH/the Nationalists.

In La Ceiba (Atlántida), outgoing Liberal deputy Bader Dip will succeed Liberal incumbent Jerry Sabio, who lost in the primaries. With 73% reporting, Dip has 49.6% against 26.1% for the National Party.

In Danlí (El Paraíso), with only half of the votes counted, it appears too close to call between a Liberal (Melvin Betanco) and a Nationalist (Abraham Kafati, former deputy and businessman who has gotten tons of contracts with the municipality and government...), with the former leading with 33.4% against 30.8%.

In El Progreso (Yoro), the outcome is also uncertain as only half of votes have been counted. Incumbent yanista Liberal mayor Alexander López is seeking a fifth term - having been mayor since 2006 - and while he's currently leading, with 27.1%, the difference with the Nationalists (25.1%) and Libre (24%) is thin. López is another classic clientelist cacique, who began as a protégé of Roberto Micheletti, the guy who served as president post-2009 coup. His administration has been under constant investigation for corruption since 2016, notably accused of abuse of power, mismanagement of funds during the pandemic, procurement irregularities (like handing the trash collection concession to a company owned by Micheletti's son in 2011).

In Choluteca (Choluteca), Liberal mayor Quintín Soriano has won a fifth term in power - with 61% reporting, he leads with 41.6% against 23.6% for the PSH and 19.7% for the National Party. Quintin's slogan is the laziest in world history: VOTE POR YO (VOTE FOR ME) (yes, that's it), and it's also gramatically incorrect in Spanish, but you should check out his cheesy Facebook videos because they're catchy (he has a remake of Jingle Bells in his honour...). According to Criterio.hn, Quintin said this will be his last term (something he also said two terms ago), because he wants to retire with 90% of his salary. A few months ago, he explained that he discovered he had COVID by losing his sense of smell, and tested that out by grabbing some of his poop with his fingers and smelling it (he didn't smell anything)...

In Comayagua (Comayagua), Liberal mayor Carlos Miranda has been re-elected to a seventh term - he was first elected in 1998. With 71% reporting, he has 46.9% against 21% for Libre.

In Gracias (Lempira), JOH's cradle and stronghold, the incumbent Nationalist mayor Javier Antonio Enamorado, first elected in 2010, lost re-election to a Libre-Liberal opposition candidate. With 62% reporting, Enamorado has 39% against 57.6% for the opposition. Enamorado is an old ally of the Hernández clan - his vice mayor between 2014 and 2018 was Mario José Cálix, one of Tony Hernández's co-defendants accused of drug trafficking (and currently in hiding). Cálix's sister was head of the anti-narcotics division, while his brother was Supreme Court magistrate.

In Tocoa (Colón), incumbent Libre mayor José Adán Fúnez has likely won a third term. With 80% reporting, he leads with 35.3% against 31% for the National Party. Fúnez is a nasty guy with criminal ties. In 2017, Rivera Maradiaga of the Cachiros testified that he bribed him in exchange for protection and to facilitate passage of drug shipments, and in 2016 Fúnez himself admitted that Rivera Maradiaga was a friend. He's also accused of riding roughshod over environmental preoccupations and local communities to promote a mining project pushed by the daughter and son-in-law of late business magnate Miguel Facussé. On top of that, he's also faced accusations of corruption.

In Yoro (Yoro), the criminal-political Urbina Soto clan (National) has been defeated. Incumbent mayor Diana Urbina Soto lost re-election to a Liberal, 38.2% to 47.4%, with 56.7% reporting. The Urbina Soto is a political-criminal clan involved in drug trafficking (allied with the Cachiros), illegal logging and land appropriation, which has controlled local politics in Yoro for decades. Diana and her brother Arnaldo both served in Congress and as mayor (Arnaldo was mayor between 2009 and his arrest in 2014), and were JOH allies (and bankrollers). Their siblings Carlos Fernando, Miguel Ángel and Mario are violent, murderous criminals, with the former being considering the criminal leader of the family. Of course, the family rarely faced legal problems, and when they did, they could get themselves out of it quickly. Arnaldo, Miguel Ángel and Mario were arrested in 2014 and although the raid found weapons, ammunition, cash, satellite phones and more, the case was botched and in 2017 only Arnaldo was found guilty of money laundering, and sentenced to 16 years in prison in 2020. In 2021, Arnaldo and other municipal officials were found guilty of contractual irregularities but acquitted on 183 other charges. He was also named in the Pandora case, but like other politicians those charges were also dropped in 2020. In 2018, Arnaldo, Carlos Fernando and Miguel Ángel were indicted on drug trafficking charges in the US.

[Sir John Johns]

Xiomara Castro hasn’t even been inaugurated that the Libre parliamentary caucus is already imploding.

Yesterday, 20 Libre congressmen broke the agreement concluded between Castro and Salvador Nasralla to hand over the presidency of the new Congress to Nasralla’s party, instead nominating Jorge Cálix, a young (36) but very influential Libre deputy from Francisco Morazán department. Cálix used to be the leader of the PLH youth wing and organized street protests against the ousting of Mel Zelaya. He was apparently considered until few weeks ago as close to the former president and was seen as the most combative Libre deputy in the last Congress, describign himself as 'the loudest voice of the opposition'. He is very active on social network where is making extensive use of his own wife and young child for self-promotion purposes.

Cálix has been elected the provisional president of Congress (traditionally meaning he would became the titular holder of the post) receiving 85 votes from congressmen, much more than the 65 required votes.

Cálix was voted as president by 21 (out of 50) Libre congressmen, the all 44 PNH congressmen, 18 (out of 22) PLH congressmen and the lonely DC and PAC congressmen, defeating Luis Redondo, the candidate fielded by Nasralla’s PSH (10 congressmen) and supported by the majority of the Libre caucus.

The Congress session quickly turned into complete chaos with cries and brawls and seven Libre loyalist deputies physically attacking Cálix.

Castro has since pronounced the definitive expulsion from Libre of the 18 rogue deputies (two ‘rectified’ their votes in support of Cálix to vote instead for Redondo; another one apparently canceled her vote and decided to not decide between the two candidates). She has denounced a treason and a maneuver by the PNH and incumbent president Juan Orlando Hernández to retain control over Honduras.

[Sir John Johns]

Jorge Cálix has been confirmed as president of Congress, receiving 79 votes (19 Libre, 15 PLH, 44 PNH and 1 PAC; down from the 85 votes previously received), and immediately sworn in office. The offices of first vice president (there are nine vice presidents and four alternate vice presidents) and first secretary went to Libre dissidents like Cálix, Yahvé Sabillón and Beatriz Valle, who have been expelled from Xiomara Castro’s party (like Cálix). A physician by training, Sabillón has been a Libre deputy from Comayagua since 2014. Meanwhile Valle has been a Libre deputy from Francisco Morazán department between 2014 and 2018 after having served as an ambassador to Canada under Zelaya. She is a physician (an odontologist) who apparently also used to have a TV show where she constantly bashed the administration of Juan Orlando Hernández. She was also embroiled in 2016 in a controversy for having responded to a tweet from the US ambassador in Honduras celebrating the designation of a new Supreme Court as an act ‘strengthening democracy and the respect of the constitution’ in a tweet of her describing the statement of the ambassador as untrue, calling him to seriously contribute to the fight against corruption and impunity and stating that there was a dictatorship in Honduras. So, not newly elected deputies or people having joined recently Libre but veterans of the party, some of them having been harsh critics of Hernández.

But in the meantime, Luis Redondo (PSH), has also been elected president of Congress by congressmen loyal to Castro in a parallel session whose legality is more than dubious. Indeed, he received 96 votes thanks to substitute congressmen being promoted to full congressmen. Castro has already recognized Redondo as the legitimate president of the legislature who will be present at her inauguration ceremony on next 27 January.

The election of Cálix took place in the Bosques de Zambrano Social Club, outside of Tegucigalpa, a location apparently disclosed at the last minute. Meanwhile, Redondo was elected in the Congress building as supporters of Castro were surrounding the place. Cálix has declared he would work in favor of the implementation of the agenda of Castro, but this is hard to believe. Legally, the situation must be solved by, wait for it, the Supreme Court, which is at the hands of Hernández allies.

[Cortarán todas las flores, pero jamás detendrán la primavera]

Jorge Cálix has been confirmed as president of Congress, receiving 79 votes (19 Libre, 15 PLH, 44 PNH and 1 PAC; down from the 85 votes previously received), and immediately sworn in office. The offices of first vice president (there are nine vice presidents and four alternate vice presidents) and first secretary went to Libre dissidents like Cálix, Yahvé Sabillón and Beatriz Valle, who have been expelled from Xiomara Castro’s party (like Cálix). A physician by training, Sabillón has been a Libre deputy from Comayagua since 2014. Meanwhile Valle has been a Libre deputy from Francisco Morazán department between 2014 and 2018 after having served as an ambassador to Canada under Zelaya. She is a physician (an odontologist) who apparently also used to have a TV show where she constantly bashed the administration of Juan Orlando Hernández. She was also embroiled in 2016 in a controversy for having responded to a tweet from the US ambassador in Honduras celebrating the designation of a new Supreme Court as an act ‘strengthening democracy and the respect of the constitution’ in a tweet of her describing the statement of the ambassador as untrue, calling him to seriously contribute to the fight against corruption and impunity and stating that there was a dictatorship in Honduras. So, not newly elected deputies or people having joined recently Libre but veterans of the party, some of them having been harsh critics of Hernández.

But in the meantime, Luis Redondo (PSH), has also been elected president of Congress by congressmen loyal to Castro in a parallel session whose legality is more than dubious. Indeed, he received 96 votes thanks to substitute congressmen being promoted to full congressmen. Castro has already recognized Redondo as the legitimate president of the legislature who will be present at her inauguration ceremony on next 27 January.

The election of Cálix took place in the Bosques de Zambrano Social Club, outside of Tegucigalpa, a location apparently disclosed at the last minute. Meanwhile, Redondo was elected in the Congress building as supporters of Castro were surrounding the place. Cálix has declared he would work in favor of the implementation of the agenda of Castro, but this is hard to believe. Legally, the situation must be solved by, wait for it, the Supreme Court, which is at the hands of Hernández allies.

So what happens if (or when) the supreme court recognizes Cálix as the head of the legislature? Does Castro reject the court's legitimacy and create her own parallel supreme court?

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

What’s with all the LIBRE defections? Were they not expecting such a large caucus, or are Calix etc angry about the deal with Nasralla and the PSH?

[Sir John Johns]

Honestly, I’m not very familiar with Honduran politics and I have no clue of what will happen and what are the plans of Xiomara Castro.

From what I have gathered, the name of the new Congress leadership (the president, the vice-presidents and the secretaries) should be published in the official journal to be validated. The problem is that both elections were plagued with irregularities (Redondo was elected with a quorum reached only with the alternate congressmen; there are also alleged problems with the election of Cálix from the legality of the location of the election to an error, you have to believe that, in the date of the motion presenting the candidacy of Cálix for president of the provisional junta directiva) opening the way for a cascade of legal recourse to be solved by a justice favorable to the PNH.

An additional problem I missed is that Castro should, according to the Constitution, been sworn in office by the president of the National Congress (you have to think that maybe this was the point of all this mess) and, in case of the absence of the president of the National Congress, the president of the Supreme Court. However, Castro has indicated she will not been sworn by ‘the traitors’ and, with the legality of Redondo uncertain and distrust toward the Supreme Court, she has decided she would be sworn by a justice of peace, something which may not be constitutional.


The rupture in Libre is reportedly due a consequence of the agreement between Castor and Nasralla, which helped the former to be elected president but displeased several ambitious Libre legislators. Jorge Cálix and Beatriz Valle (the former having been previously a substitute of the latter) were indeed arguing that the presidency of the Congress should not go to the PSH and its 10 congressmen as provided by the agreement but to the largest caucus in the legislature, Libre, and its 50 congressmen. Cálix argued that, as the most-voted congressman, he was the most legitimate to become the president of the Congress. The choice for Castro was between breaking the agreement with Nasralla or risking the implosion of her party, with in the end and in both cases no working majority in Congress. That’s from what is publicly known because there were rumors of vote-buying and allegations made by former president of the Supreme Electoral Court Enrique Ortez over a supposed pact between Juan Orlando Hernández and Yani Rosenthal to undermine the presidency of Castro by getting Cálix elected.

In any case, the PNH didn’t missed the opportunity to exploit divisions inside Libre by indicating it would voted in favor of a Libre congressman as it is the largest caucus in the Assembly. Of course, the PLH, minus the Luis Zelaya faction, then followed suit. The election of Cálix ensued.

All of this is explained in this article of El Heraldo.



Oh, and Beatriz Valle, after several days of silence, came back on social networks to warn about an imminent dissolution of the state institutions, to claim that Zelaya and Castro are trying to convene a Constituent National Assembly (ANC) – a proposal Valle says she actually supports but in the future, not at this moment – and to preach ‘unity and reconciliation’.

https://twitter.com/BeatrizValleM/status/1485362804622307336

Before adding, she would consider Zelaya as responsible in case something happens to her and her relatives (citing countless death threats she has received) with accusations the former president is trying to stage a coup to reverse the 2009 coup. Totally insane.

https://twitter.com/BeatrizValleM/status/1485365695269457924

[PSOL]

What’s with all the LIBRE defections? Were they not expecting such a large caucus, or are Calix etc angry about the deal with Nasralla and the PSH?

It took a large tent to get Honduran business leaders to accept the loss of JOH, but not to let Libre and friends have much say over decision making.

[Sir John Johns]

Xiomara Castro has officially became the first woman to head Honduras. She has been sworn in office today by Karla Lizeth Romero Dávila, the justice of the peace she had previously designated, with Luis Redondo appearing next to Romero Dávila. Also attending the public ceremony were Kamala Harris, King Felipe VI, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, Gabriel Boric and the vice president of Taiwan (Honduras is recognizing Taipei over Beijing but Castro has previously mentioned she could switch diplomatic recognition, a move already made by Nicaragua the last month).

The dispute over Congress leadership isn’t resolved as two parallel inaugural sessions took place while it has been the Redondo’s Congress leadership composition that has been published in the official gazette. Negotiations have started to resolve the political crisis with proposed solutions currently including the Yani Rosenthal-led faction of the PLH dropping Cálix to vote in favor of Redondo, the holding of a new election to designate a compromise president (the name of Hugo Noé Pinto, member of the Libre faction loyal to Castro, has been suggested but he appears to have declined) or the appointment of Cálix to a government job to vacate the presidency of the Congress (Xiomara officially offered him the post of coordinator of the government, a move possibly designed to force him revealing his true intentions as he has repeatedly said he will work to implement Castro’s agenda).

The new government is including the young (33) José Manuel Zelaya Rosales (the son of Carlos Zelaya and nephew of Mel Zelaya) as defense secretary, Héctor Zelaya Castro (Xiomara’s own son) as private secretary to the president, Rixi Moncada (who is resigning from the presidency of the National Electoral Council after having been a labor secretary and the manager of the state-owned electricity company in Mel Zelaya administration) as finance secretary and Rebeca Santos (finance minister under Zelaya) as president of the Central Bank. Out of 34 members of the new administration, 7 have previously been part of the Zelaya administration and only 10 are women. The PSH has obtained two portfolios: Economic Development and Health. Meanwhile, the security secretariat has been given to Ramón Sabillón, who just came back from exile in the United States. A former director of the National Police (2013-14), Sabillón managed during his eleven-month-long tenure to capture eight important drug kingpins including the Valle Valle brothers and Héctor Emilio Fernández Rosa aka ‘Don H’. For such achievements, he was fired by Juan Orlando Hernández and had to flee the country in 2016 for having denounced the ties of the Hernández administration with drug traffickers and the penetration of Honduran politics by organized crime.

US representative for California Norma Torres has just asked the US Justice Department to immediately indict and request the extradition of Hernández. This one is however trying to use his future political job as a member of the Central American Parliament to evade judicial problems. Three retiring congressmen, including nationalist politician Óscar Nájera who is currently sanctioned by the US State Department, have been named a week ago ‘life members of Congress’ (being able to participate in sessions but not to vote) by the previous, National Party-controlled, legislature officially in recognition of their services but actually to extend their parliamentary immunity.

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

Castro has tested positive for Covid-19, but in better news for her Zelaya was able to negotiate an agreement with the rebel Libre members and they appear to have fully backed down, recognizing Redondo as president of Congress in exchange for returning to the party.

[Sir John Johns]

The United States, particularly under Trump, have continued playing an incoherent game in Honduras. Clearly, the incumbent president being named a co-conspirator in a drug trafficking conspiracy hasn’t been enough for the US to reassess its policy towards Honduras. The Biden administration has preferred an awkward strategy of working around JOH while still working with his administration, although not too closely – perhaps counting down the days until he leaves office, as if that will suddenly fix every other problem.

The US State Department has released three lists of corrupt officials in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, requested by Congress. All three lists have omitted to mention Juan Orlando Hérnandez or his relatives. A list released in May 2021 only listed the five incumbent deputies accused in the Arca Abierta scandal, as well as Nationalist deputy Óscar Nájera, who was sanctioned by the State Department under s. 7031(c) in 2019 for suspected ties to the Cachiros. In July and September 2021, the State Department released the so-called ‘Engel list’ of corrupt and undemocratic actors, which included 21 Honduran politicians – 13 of them incumbent members of Congress who were implicated in various corruption scandals (Pandora, Arca Abierta etc.). The list includes Pepe Lobo and his wife, but again JOH his conspicuous by his absence – something which Lobo himself has played upon to dismiss the list as a joke.

And it has been disclosed that JOH's name has been secretly included on the 'Engel list' as early as 1 July 2021. The US State Department has announced yesterday it has revoked his visa.

https://twitter.com/SecBlinken/status/1490795809692135438

A formal indictment and a request for extradition of the former president should be rapidly follow.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

The United States, particularly under Trump, have continued playing an incoherent game in Honduras. Clearly, the incumbent president being named a co-conspirator in a drug trafficking conspiracy hasn’t been enough for the US to reassess its policy towards Honduras. The Biden administration has preferred an awkward strategy of working around JOH while still working with his administration, although not too closely – perhaps counting down the days until he leaves office, as if that will suddenly fix every other problem.

The US State Department has released three lists of corrupt officials in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, requested by Congress. All three lists have omitted to mention Juan Orlando Hérnandez or his relatives. A list released in May 2021 only listed the five incumbent deputies accused in the Arca Abierta scandal, as well as Nationalist deputy Óscar Nájera, who was sanctioned by the State Department under s. 7031(c) in 2019 for suspected ties to the Cachiros. In July and September 2021, the State Department released the so-called ‘Engel list’ of corrupt and undemocratic actors, which included 21 Honduran politicians – 13 of them incumbent members of Congress who were implicated in various corruption scandals (Pandora, Arca Abierta etc.). The list includes Pepe Lobo and his wife, but again JOH his conspicuous by his absence – something which Lobo himself has played upon to dismiss the list as a joke.

And it has been disclosed that JOH's name has been secretly included on the 'Engel list' as early as 1 July 2021. The US State Department has announced yesterday it has revoked his visa.

https://twitter.com/SecBlinken/status/1490795809692135438
A formal indictment and a request for extradition of the former president should be rapidly follow.

He's now being extradited to the US to face drug trafficking charges.
https://twitter.com/bpolitics/status/1504305589232574466