Polls have opened in Honduras as citizens vote to elect a new president only days after US President Donald Trump intervened in a close race with an endorsement of one candidate and announced that he would pardon a former president in the Central American country.
Trump has also threatened to cut aid to the country if his favored candidate, Nasry “Tito” Asfura of the right-wing National Party, is not successful.
Who is in the running to become the next president of Honduras?
Honduras could be the next country in Latin America, after Argentina and Bolivia, to lurch to the right after years of leftist rule.
Polls show three candidates neck-and-neck in the race to succeed leftist President Xiomara Castro, whose husband, Manuel Zelaya, also led the country before being toppled in a 2009 coup.
Trump-backed Asfura, 60-year-old lawyer Rixi Moncada from the ruling Libre party, and 72-year-old TV host Salvador Nasralla of the Liberal Party are the leading candidates to become the next president of Honduras.
Trump’s threat
Polls opened at 7 a.m. local time (1300 GMT), with the first results expected late Sunday after the voting stations close at 5 p.m.
Trump has conditioned continued financial support for one of Latin America’s poorest countries on Asfura winning.
“If he (Asfura) doesn’t win, the United States will not be throwing good money after bad,” he posted on Friday on his Truth Social platform, echoing threats he made in support of Argentine President Javier Milei’s party in recent midterms.
Trump also announced on Friday he planned to pardon former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez, of the National Party, who is serving a 45-year prison sentence in the United States for cocaine trafficking and other charges.
The elections, in which the 128 members of Congress, hundreds of mayors, and thousands of other public officials will also be elected, are taking place in a polarized climate, with the three top candidates accusing each other of fraud.
Moncada has even suggested she will not recognize the official results.
Edited by: Dmytro Hubenko
