Jose Cabezas via Creative Commons
Honduras' president-elect Xiomara Castro.
The opposition has officially won the 2021 election in Honduras, after the ruling party candidate conceded his defeat on November 30 to Xiomara Castro, who will become Honduras’ first woman president. She will assume office on January 27, 2022.
The problem is not a left-wing or a right-wing problem. Rather, as Robinson suggests, it is a crisis of capitalism and the state.
“The people are hopeful that the situation in Honduras will change now following the elections and now that we have a woman president,” Mercedes Pérez, who works with the Mennonite Social Action Center, tells The Progressive. “We have had twelve years with a government that . . . expelled and continues to expel thousands of young people from this country due to the lack of employment and high levels of violence, drug trafficking, and corruption.”
Following her victory, Castro told the Agence France-Presse that her administration has already reached out to the United Nations to form an anti-corruption body in the country, similar to the U.N.-backed anti-corruption body in Guatemala, known as CICIG. But among the main issues facing the new administration is the massive migration of Hondurans abroad.
The caravans of Honduran migrants that began in 2018 resulted from the Juan Orlando Hernández administration’s rampant corruption and alleged ties to drug trafficking. Now that Castro has secured the presidency, one of the key drivers of migration has been removed from Honduras. But migration is expected to continue.
“Unless you resolve the structural underpinnings of mass migration, it’s going to continue,” says William I. Robinson, a sociology professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “There might be a temporary lull as people that might be considering migrating wait and see what’s going to happen next.”
Castro’s sweeping reforms face challenges if the LIBRE party fails to gain a majority in the Honduran Congress. A recount of votes for congress is currently underway after accusations of fraud in the congressional vote arose following the November 26 election.
The victory in Honduras could face other internal challenges. The coalition that made it possible, between the left and what Center for Democracy Studies director Gustavo Irías described as the “democratic” right, could lead to a rupture.
“The broad unity is inevitably going to crack. It’s going to deteriorate,” Robinson says. “The Honduran bourgeoisie and elite are going to try and break the unity around the elections and bolster the center and center right wing of this very broad coalition and marginalize any possibility of a left direction to the coalition.”
Some of the first cracks have begun to form: Prior to the election, then candidate Castro had suggested that the Central American country should open up diplomatic relations with China. This was quickly walked back following the election.
While Honduras has taken a step toward maintaining democracy, an authoritarian shift has been occurring across Latin America.
Recent elections in Nicaragua, Venezuela, El Salvador, and Guatemala have continued to expand the influence of officials with an authoritarian tendency, and the pending second round of the presidential election in Chile has the potential to elect a far-right fascist as the country’s president and in Brazil, far-right President Jair Bolsnario is poised to run for a second term.
The problem is not a left-wing or a right-wing problem. Rather, as Robinson suggests, it is a crisis of capitalism and the state.
“The authoritarian trend is a reflection of and a response to the crisis,” Robinson says. “In the broadest sense, [it is] the crisis of global capitalism, but [also] the social and economic crises in every Latin American country.”
Castro’s election, at the local level, can be attributed to the pressure created by strong social protests across Honduras during the twelve years under the rule of the National Party.
In the countries neighboring Honduras, recent elections have maintained authoritarian projects, such as the recent re-election of Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua for a fourth term, and the increasing populist authoritarianism of Nayib Bukele in El Salvador. According to Robinson, this is all a reflection of the crisis that the region faces.
“At times of crisis and instability, things can go in many different directions,” Robinson says. “Things are very unpredictable. So it’s not surprising to have a breakthrough for the left in Honduras and right next door to have the bizarre situation where what historically was the left is [now] a dictatorship.”
The social movements that supported Xiomara Castro’s election will now need to be active and maintain momentum, rather than being absorbed and demobilized into the political apparatus.