International

Honduras ruling party accepts election defeat by Xiomara Castro

AFP

Honduras’s leftist presidential candidate Xiomara Castro was headed for election victory Tuesday — making history as the first woman to govern the Central American nation — with her rival from the ruling rightwing National Party conceding defeat.

With just over 52 percent of votes counted, former first lady Castro led with 53.49 percent compared with 33.98 percent for her nearest challenger, the conservative Nasry Asfura.

While Hondurans were nervously awaiting the final election results, Asfura said he met with the LIBRE party candidate and her family to concede and congratulate her.

“I wish that God may enlighten and guide her so that her administration does the best” for Honduras, Asfura said in a video released by the National Party (PN).

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The closely watched poll came four years after presidential elections marred by fraud claims and violence, and the PN was quick to highlight “the climate of peace and tranquility in the country” even though the ruling party was ousted from power.

Washington also hailed the Honduran people and their “free and fair election.”

“We congratulate them and President Elect @XiomaraCastroZ and look forward to working together to strengthen democratic institutions, promote inclusive economic growth, and fight corruption,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken tweeted.

Castro’s husband Manuel Zelaya was deposed in a 2009 coup supported by the military, business elites and the political right.

On Sunday, she vowed to lead “a reconciliation government” in a country wracked by violent crime, drug trafficking, rampant corruption and large-scale migration to the United States.

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Castro’s victory would break 12 years of PN rule and four decades of hegemony shared with the Liberal Party.

– ‘Largely calm and peaceful’ –

There have been no reports of violence related to Sunday’s vote, a far cry from the deadly protests that broke out when Juan Orlando Hernandez won a second successive term in a 2017 election that the opposition said was stolen.

More than 30 people died as authorities cracked down on that month-long protest.

The European Union on Tuesday welcomed the “largely calm and peaceful atmosphere” of the latest election, though the run-up was marked by “unprecedented levels of political violence and intense polarization.”

An observer mission on the ground also noted “a number of deficiencies in the institutional management and preparation of the elections,” according to a statement from the office of EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell.

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Vote counting has been slow, with the first half of ballots arriving at the National Electoral Council in digital format while the rest must be physically delivered.

The campaign was bitter, with the National Party trying to attach a “communist” label to Castro and attacking her support for legalizing abortion and same-sex marriage, touchy subjects in deeply conservative Honduras.

In turn, Castro branded Hernandez a “narco-dictator.”

Corruption and drug-trafficking scandals have engulfed Hernandez and many in his inner circle.

Meanwhile, Asfura was accused in 2020 of embezzling $700,000 of public money and the Pandora Papers — a trove of leaked documents exposing offshore accounts — linked him to influence peddling in Costa Rica.

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Some 59 percent of Honduras’s 10 million people live in poverty.

Unemployment jumped from 5.7 percent in 2019 to 10.9 percent the following year, largely because of the coronavirus pandemic, according to a study by the Autonomous University.

Washington has been keeping a close eye on the election, with Honduras the starting point for waves of migrant caravans trying to reach the United States.

International

Trump urges Putin to reach peace deal

On Monday, U.S. President Donald Trump reiterated his desire for Russian President Vladimir Putin to “reach a deal” to end the war in Ukraine, while also reaffirming his willingness to impose sanctions on Russia.

“I want to see him reach an agreement to prevent Russian, Ukrainian, and other people from dying,” Trump stated during a press conference in the Oval Office at the White House.

“I think he will. I don’t want to have to impose secondary tariffs on Russian oil,” the Republican leader added, recalling that he had already taken similar measures against Venezuela by sanctioning buyers of the South American country’s crude oil.

Trump also reiterated his frustration over Ukraine’s resistance to an agreement that would allow the United States to exploit natural resources in the country—a condition he set in negotiations to end the war.

International

Deportation flight lands in Venezuela; government denies criminal gang links

A flight carrying 175 Venezuelan migrants deported from the United States arrived in Caracas on Sunday. This marks the third group to return since repatriation flights resumed a week ago, and among them is an alleged member of a criminal organization, according to Venezuelan authorities.

Unlike previous flights operated by the Venezuelan state airline Conviasa, this time, an aircraft from the U.S. airline Eastern landed at Maiquetía Airport, on the outskirts of Caracas, shortly after 2:00 p.m. with the deportees.

Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, who welcomed the returnees at the airport, stated that the 175 repatriated individuals were coming back “after being subjected, like all Venezuelans, to persecution” and dismissed claims that they belonged to the criminal organization El Tren de Aragua.

However, Cabello confirmed that “for the first time in these flights we have been carrying out, someone of significance wanted by Venezuelan justice has arrived, and he is not from El Tren de Aragua.” Instead, he belongs to a gang operating in the state of Trujillo. The minister did not disclose the individual’s identity or provide details on where he would be taken.

International

Son of journalist José Rubén Zamora condemns father’s return to prison as “illegal”

Guatemalan court decides Wednesday whether to convict journalist José Rubén Zamora

The son of renowned journalist José Rubén Zamora Marroquín, José Carlos Zamora, has denounced as “illegal” the court order that sent his father back to a Guatemalan prison on March 3, after already spending 819 days behind barsover a highly irregular money laundering case.

“My father’s return to prison was based on an arbitrary and illegal ruling. It is also alarming that the judge who had granted him house arrest received threats,” José Carlos Zamora told EFE in an interview on Saturday.

The 67-year-old journalist was sent back to prison inside the Mariscal Zavala military barracks on March 3, when Judge Erick García upheld a Court of Appeals ruling that overturned the house arrest granted to him in October. Zamora had already spent 819 days in prison over an alleged money laundering case.

His son condemned the situation as “unacceptable”, stating that the judge handling the case “cannot do his job in accordance with the law due to threats against his life.”