4 questions to understand the crisis of congress in Honduras, the first of Xiomara Castro (before being president)

With these four questions we explain the latest events.

1. What happened in Congress?

Honduras’ National Congress plunged into chaos on Friday after a provisional board of directors was elected that did not have the support of President-elect Castro.

The session was marked by beatings, boos and shouts among deputies from various political sides.

The Board of Directors was elected with 85 votes in favor (a minimum of 65 was necessary), among which were 20 legislators from the party of the newly elected head of state, who closed ranks with the opposition National Party and other minority groups.

As president of the Congress they chose Jorge Cálix, who also militates in Libre. The legislator and the directive were ratified as leaders of Parliament on Sunday.
Supporters of Xiomara Castro enter the National Congress to show support for the pact with the PSH. REUTERS

With their actions, the libre deputies did not respect a pre-electoral pact between the future president and Salvador Nasralla’s Salvador Party of Honduras (PSH).

Given this, the rest of the deputies of Libre met with members of the PSH and several alternate deputies to point out their own provisional Board of Directors. To preside over the legislative branch, they selected on Sunday Luis Redondo, from the Nasralla party.

2. What was the covenant?

An agreement prior to the elections between these last two political groups established that Nasralla would not stand for election as a candidate for president if Libre guaranteed him the vice presidency of Honduras and the possibility of electing the directive of Congress.

Several Libre deputies said publicly that they were not taken into account in the negotiations. Due to discontent, they were absent from a meeting called by the president last week, prior to the vote in the legislative plenary, which was an omen of the division.

Castro won last 2021 with 1.7 million votes, but Libre only won 50 seats in Congress, while the PSH another 10. Between them they did not reach a simple majority to endorse the pact.

Faced with this, the 20 deputies of Libre joined 44 of the National Party, along with the minorities, to promote Cálix and its own Board of Directors.

The reaction of Castro and Libre was not long in coming, and on Friday they expelled 18 of the 20 legislators from the party, after two retracted.

3. What did Xiomara Castro say?

“The betrayal has been consummated”, were the first words of the president-elect on Friday, on her Twitter account.
Hundreds of people gathered outside Congress after Xiomara Castro called for a “vigil.” EPA

Later that day, when he announced the expulsion of the 18 deputies, he accused them of allegedly allying themselves with the “dictatorship” of the National Party, who spent the past 12 years in power, the last eight with Juan Orlando Hernández at the helm.

In addition, he called for a vigil outside the Congress, in which hundreds of people gathered and which lasted until Sunday morning, when his co-religionists met to elect Redondo.

This caused the ratification of Cálix to occur in the Country Club Bosques de Zambrano, north of Tegucigalpa. According to Cálix, the new Parliament he presides over will be “free of interference, free of impositions.” And he added that they guarantee Hondurans to be “vigilant that the legislative agenda of our president Xiomara Castro is fulfilled.”

“Together we will tell those traitors that they will not pass and that the will of this people must be respected. As well as Judas, coins have been sold for some accounts,” Castro, wife of former President Manuel Zelaya, said during the vigil.

I recognize the Presidency of the Congress headed by Deputy Luis Redondo, I invite you to my Swearing-in with the People on January 27. I congratulate deputies who reject 12 years of corruption networks of “Joh”: on the way to greet them in the CN We win!.
— Xiomara Castro de Zelaya (@XiomaraCastroZ) January 23, 2022

The president-elect must be sworn in on January 27 before the head of the legislative branch. On Friday she announced that she was not willing to swear in front of Cálix, so she would do so before a judge.

This Sunday, however, he supported the selection of Redondo and invited him to the protocol acts.

4. How do these events affect your future presidency?
Xiomara Castro is the first female president in the country’s history. GETTY IMAGES

For the analyst Titian Breda, from International Crisis GrOup, castro’s presidency was expected to be “uphill” in the absence of a majority in Congress.

The expert said that what happened over the weekend is a test of “additional stress for his leadership, which is put to the test days before starting his term.”

“It’s also a reality check for the population, which will probably have to resize its expectations of change [ante la llegada del nuevo gobierno]” he said.

In his view, the conflict could have two consequences. The first, “an institutional crisis” like the one the country suffered after the 2009 coup d’état, which deposed Manuel Zelaya, the husband of the new president. And the second, in the absence of a short-term solution, the increase in citizen discontent.

According to Breda, if the problem is not solved with agreements between the political parties, he will have to go to the judicial system, which “does not enjoy much confidence from the population”.

Original source in Spanish

Related Posts

Add Comment