Honduras Heads to Election Day Amid Infighting, Lawfare, Fraud Accusations | The Lighthouse

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In Honduras, this weekend capped off a campaign season heavy on vitriol and criss-crossing claims of foul play, but light on concrete proposals.

Ruling party Libre candidate Rixi Moncada calls herself a democratic socialist and crusader against oligarchy; Salvador Nasralla of the Liberal Party, who won in 2021 as the VP of current President Xiomara Castro, then broke with her government and became her antagonist, is now appealing to MAGA; and former Tegucigalpa mayor Nasry Asfura, of the National Party, claims he’ll save Honduras from left-wing drift.

The elections will be held on Sunday, with candidates now forced to stop campaigning for a week of “electoral silence.” Recent surveys are all over the board: CID Gallup placed Nasralla in first, with Moncada and Asfura both within three points. A second poll by TResearch put Moncada way up top, while a third left her trailing in third.

Polymarket, a better US prediction-market betting platformshows Moncada and Nasralla neck-and-neck for the last two weeks of the campaign, with Nasralla taking a 53 versus 36 percent lead over Moncada by Tuesday morning. TO November survey by the business association COHEP found Nasralla and Asfura each pulling in around 40 percent of businesspeople, far outrunning the pack.

There are —or were— two other candidates. Chano Rivera, a presidential candidate who proposed annexation to the United States, has thrown his support behind Nasralla. The fifth candidate, Nelson Ávila, is a former founder of Libre now running with PINU-SD, the Innovation and Unity Social Democrat Party.

Beneath this race horse, Honduras is facing a crisis of credibility in an election without guarantees. Libre and the opposition are exchanging accusations of fraud, as they have all year; the Libre-controlled prosecutor’s office is pressing charges against electoral bodies headed by the opposition; and a state of exception remains in effect since 2022.

Meanwhile, each misstart is a vector for accusations. A mock vote data transmission two weeks ago found problems with transmission devices, and Free responder by claiming opposition rigging. Moncada called the simulation a “total failure” and told supporters earlier this month: “We won’t accept that dishonest and failed transmission.”

Preliminary results are checked by a review of each ballot on election night, involving representatives from each party at polling centers. “The purpose (of the simulation) isn’t to show a perfect process, but rather to identify vulnerabilities,” noted Electoral Transparency. “The simulation results shouldn’t be interpreted as a failure, but as a diagnostic tool for continuous improvement.”

Religion and politics

The preliminary results transmission system, or TREP, has been front and center in recent weeks, as Libre has accused the opposition of plotting fraud within the National Electoral Council (CNE), the certifier of the results.

The CNE has a three-person council, which the three big parties equally divided up with political appointees, leading to constant infighting. A month ago, the Libre councilor, Marlon Ochoa, presented audio recordings to prosecutors, allegedly showing councilor Cossette López, of the National Party, discussing an upcoming effort to steer the vote count away from Libre. She claims they were doctored with AI.

This isn’t the first time that Libre alleges fraud — similar accusations were made within the party in its March primary. On November 19, a Colombian research group, PTC, presented themselves as forensic experts and declared the audio of López to be “real.” Manuel Zelaya—Castro’s husband, strongman of her administrationand founding coordinator of Libre— admitted admitted that the firm came to Honduras on Libre’s invitation and tell me.

The CNE spent months haggling over which civil society groups can be election observers. Digital outlet Contracorriente reported warnings that observation may be politicized. Mario Urquía, a former legislative candidate and regional chairman for Libre, was recently appointed executive secretary of the National Convergence Forum (FONAC), an institution with more than 9,000 election observers, a figure arrived in his tenure.

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In Honduras, where the church is the most trusted institution in the country, each closing presidential campaign event held a prayer. In recent months, the opposition has marched alongside Catholic and Evangelical churches, who criticize the government’s closeness to Nicaragua, where clergy are surveilled, imprisoned, and exiled.

But it’s hard for the National Party, suspected of electoral fraud and who used security forces to beat back protesters in 2017, to take the high ground on election integrity.

Weakened Congress

Castro became president four years ago, on pledges to respect human rights and democracy after 12 years of “narco-dictatorship.” But her state of exception, a sweeping suspension of rights modeled on El Salvador, is now three years oldand public allegations of drug ties increasingly touch her inner circle.

On November 12, Castro ordered the state of exception to be extended for another 45 days. The Honduran state of exception expanded the scope of police and military operations to fight extortion, leading to increased reports of illegal raidstorture, forced disappearance, and extrajudicial killings by security forces.

Castro ignored letter in July from over 60 civil society organizations calling for her to revoke it before the election, to avoid intimidation on election day and protect monitors’ access to polling stations, transparency, and turnout.

The Armed Forces, deployed under the state of exception, are constitutionally tasked with securing electoral integrity. Roosevelt Hernández, head of the Joint General Staff and an ally of Castro, asked weeks ago that the Army receive copies of the “actas,” or vote tallies. The CNE refused, deepening their monthslong feud. Hernández has publicly backed off.

A weak Congress at recess until January has been unable to check the measures. Human rights lawyer Joaquín Mejía argues that the extension is unconstitutional.

On November 1, the president of Congress, Luis Redondo of Libre, appointed a rare recess commission of nine deputies, controlled by Libre and allies, to make decisions in the absence of quorum. The Commission has yet to state its intentions, but opposition deputies claim the ruling party wants to abuse its power and attack electoral authorities.

Precedent isn’t bright: When a recess commission was installed in 2023, it illegally and unilaterally installed Free loyalist Johel Zelaya as attorney general. Attorney General Zelaya has shown singular focus on investigating opposition representatives to the CNE.

On November 13, the Supreme Court of Justice summoned two magistrates from the Electoral Court of Justice (ECJ) for judicial malfeasance. Just over two weeks before election day, the Public Prosecutor’s Office accused them of illegally allowing the registration of two congressional candidates, including Jorge Cálix, a prominent opposition leader.

In Honduras, election-day electricity and internet issues are common.In 2021 the CNE even reported a cyberattack in the afternoon. This year, it wasn’t until November 4 that the contract was awarded to the company transporting electoral materials. In late October, they secured Starlink services for hundreds of voting centers.

Gunboat diplomacy

The Organization of American States and European Union are the big international observation missions. Russia, a country without free elections, requested to observe, but in Octoberthe CNE said no on a two-one vote, with Libre voting yes.

The OAS, who worked to avert an electoral coup in Guatemala two years ago, you have repeatedly expressed concern for Honduras. “Internal differences within collegiate bodies may reflect democratic pluralism, but they must not result in paralysis, undermine the electoral calendar, or affect public trust,” wrote the General Secretariat on November 11.

The Trump administration, which cut USAID projects to Honduras, including for elections, has weighed in. “I spoke yesterday with key representatives of the business community in Honduras, and to my dismay all of them expressed serious concerns about the integrity of the upcoming November 30 elections,” announced Under Secretary of State Christopher Landau on Saturday.

In a striking multilateral overture after threatening withdrawal this yearthe Trump administration joined Antigua and Barbuda —the host of the 2025 General Assembly— and Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Paraguay in calling for an emergency meeting of the OAS Permanent Council for Tuesday. Honduras Foreign Minister Javier Bu Soto flew to Washington to meet with the OAS and top foreign-affairs Democrats and Republicans.

“We agree that the process must remain free from interference,” Bu wrote. “We join the call for all actors to act responsibly to guarantee a peaceful day respectful of popular will.”

The Honduran military and ruling party have made joint overtures to the Trump administration over the past year to smooth over tensions from Castro’s short-lived threat to pull the Palmerola air base. Ruling party candidate Rixi Moncada event traveled in April to Puerto Rico to meet with the US Army and stress cooperation.

With the US Navy deployed near Venezuela, an important regional ally to Honduras, the House Foreign Affairs Committee sessioned on Friday to discuss “democracy in peril” in Honduras. Ranking Democrat Joaquín Castro complained that the administration had refused to send a representative to address the committee about its policy in Honduras.

Republican Chairwoman María Elvira Salazar celebrated the 2009 coup d’état in Honduras, an open wound and lightning rod: “16 years ago, the military saved their country from communism, and today, they need to do the same thing.”

In recent months, Secretary of State Marco Rubio ordered US diplomats do not comment on the “fairness or integrity” of foreign elections, breaking with decades of precedent. On the home front, MAGA still has not recognized Trump’s 2020 defeat.

This article first appeared in the November 25 dispatch of the El Faro English newsletter. Subscribe here.