The president has reluctantly ordered the beginning of the transition of power in Honduras to the conservative politician, declared winner of last November’s presidential elections that plunged the Central American country into uncertainty. “I order that the transition and transfer of mandate to the de facto government declared by the National Electoral Council and the Electoral Court of Justice be organized, without counting more than one million votes at the three electoral levels,” said Castro, who affirmed that Asfura’s is a mandate that came “from a monstrous electoral fraud.”
The decision is made after weeks of political chaos in Honduras, where the ruling party has refused to recognize the victory of Asfura, who triumphed in the elections with the . The Libertad y Refoundación (Libre) party, founded by the former president and Castro’s husband, has denounced massive fraud in the presidential vote and has demanded that a new recount of votes be carried out, because, its leaders have stated, the electoral authorities manipulated the ballots. For the leadership of Libre, an “electoral coup” was brewed in the country and the powers of the State have spoken in that tone. The National Congress approved a legislative decree ordering the National Electoral Council (CNE) to count the votes and minutes of the November 30 elections. The measure was taken with the participation of only 69 pro-government deputies and their allies.
Castró supported this initiative and alleged that the electoral authorities “unjustifiably” refused to carry out the scrutiny of 4,774 minutes, “which represent the vote of 1,558,689 citizens.” The president stated that “this omission usurps popular sovereignty, by ignoring without legal cause the vote of Hondurans who went to the polls and constitutes a serious violation of the Constitution of the Republic, which I am obliged to comply with and defend.” The president recalled through the social network
Castro has had to change his positions at a tense moment in Latin America, when Washington has begun a . The United States launched an attack on January 3 against Venezuela and captured President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores, which generated fear among Central American governments that have maintained positions contrary to those of the White House, as is the case of Honduras and the regime of Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua. This Thursday, the Honduran president lowered the confrontational tone of the ruling party and said that “I reiterate that I will not remain one day more or one day less.” [en la Presidencia]”.
The president made the announcement of the beginning of the transition during a ceremony to commemorate the 144 years of the founding of the Honduran National Police, which she also took advantage of to bid farewell to the mandate she assumed on January 27, 2022, when she received the Government from the hands of former president Juan Orlando Hernández, sentenced to 45 years in prison in the United States for his links to drug trafficking and who was . “I declare that my love for Central America dies with me. Success to the youth who are called to give life to this country, which I leave with feeling for being anarchized by the two-party system, which I wish them to imitate my example of acting firmly and never remaining silent against the monstrous electoral fraud, which unfortunately they have imposed today,” Castro assured in a last effort to discredit Asfura’s mandate.
