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A vote for change in Honduras. Will they get it?
The small Central American nation of Honduras is in many ways a full blown narco-state. President Juan Orlando Hernandez – who’s governed the country for close to a decade – has been linked to the country’s booming drug trafficking trade. His brother Tony, a former congressman who is buds with Mexican drug lord El-Chapo, was sentenced to life-in prison this year for smuggling cocaine into the US. Narco-trafficking gangs run riot in the country, fueling one of the world’s highest murder rates, while corruption and poverty abound.
In a sign of the hunger for change, Hondurans have overwhelmingly selected an avowed socialist to be the next president, rather than see the conservative Hernandez’s preferred successor take power. It’s a big moment for a country in crisis. What happens now?
First, who’s won? With most of the votes counted, Xiomara Castro of the leftist Libre party currently holds a whopping 20-point lead over Nasry Asfura of Hernandez’s ruling National Party. That means Castro is now all but certain to become Honduras' first female president. She is in fact no stranger to Honduran politics: her husband José Manuel Zelaya served as president for three years until he was ousted in a military coup in 2009.
Hernandez and his cronies won’t be missed by many Hondurans whose lives are plagued by poverty and gang violence while the political elite gets rich off drug money. In Honduras, one of Central America’s poorest countries, lack of economic opportunity and high murder rates continue to drive high levels of emigration, most notably during the pandemic. The emigration rate from Honduras has increased 530 percent over the past three decades.
Will this development change things? In many ways Castro’s win is a triumph for democracy. The elections appear to have been free and fair, a stark contrast to the post-election violence that resulted after claims of election fraud in 2017.
The 62-year old Castro, who represents a coalition of opposition parties, has said she wants to open dialogue with all sectors of Honduran society to bridge the country’s deep divides. She has positioned herself as a change candidate, vowing to root out graft by establishing a UN-backed anti-corruption commission and to reduce poverty. And although her policy details are scarce, her message has resonated with a deeply disillusioned Honduran electorate that feels it has everything to lose by keeping the ruling Nationals in power.
However, Castro’s wings might be clipped by Congress, if the Nationals and its political allies hold solid ground in the 128-seat chamber.
Who’s watching? The United States, for starters. The Biden administration has made combating corruption a key part of its broader Central America policy, which aims to stabilize the region in order to reduce northward migration. And Honduras is a key piece of this: during the surge in illegal border crossings over the past year, Hondurans were second only to Mexicans among nationalities stopped at the border.
Castro, for her part, says she wants to maintain solid ties with the US, though it is unclear whether Washington and Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital, will find common ground on a range of issues including relations with China, migration, and security.
Mexico also has a keen interest in seeing a more stable Honduras. President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has come under strong pressure – first from Trump, now from Biden – to stop migration flows at his own borders.
Looking ahead. Castro’s job will be to turn stump speech rhetoric into meaningful change that people can feel. Hondurans are desperate for change. The neighbors are watching closely. Can she deliver?
Omicron variant unlikely to lead to lockdowns by governments
Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week with a look at the omicron variant, the Honduras presidential election, and the pros and cons of getting stuck in a UK pub for three days in a snowstorm.
As the omicron variant emerges, is a return to lockdown next?
The answer is, only in a few play places, because people are exhausted from lockdowns. They're angry with their governments from doing it. Governments are going to be very reluctant to have the economic hit as a consequence, especially when they know they can't pay out the relief money that they've been paying over the last couple of years, and they're not yet sure about just how much of a danger omicron is. I think all sorts of travel restrictions, but unless and until you see that the spread starts leading to significant lethality, hospitalizations, and once again, the potential for ICUs to be overwhelmed, I do not expect many significant lockdowns that are countrywide at this point. Not least in Sub-Saharan Africa, where the populations are very young and as a consequence, you can have a lot of spread and they're not paying attention to it, frankly.
Will the Honduras presidential election have wider regional implications?
Just had this election. It looks like the first female president ever they're going to see win, Xiomara Castro, who is up by some 20 points. They are still saying, fake news, and they're challenging, they're contesting it. The big issue is what happens with immigration, and will this government be willing to work more closely with the Mexicans, with the Biden administration? Because after Mexico, the largest number of illegal immigrants picked up going across the wall, coming from Honduras to the United States. That's a big issue. Of all the countries in the region, El Salvador has been a disaster to work with. Guatemala has been a little easier. Honduras has been in between. Really, really tough to get enough support on the ground that you can try to limit what is enormously dangerous country and people just trying to get the hell out.
A snowstorm left dozens stuck in a pub for three days in the UK. Good time or great time?
Well, I don't know. I mean, most people I know in the UK would say getting stuck in a pub for a few days is an awesome time in the snow. You're not going to do anything anyway. It's not like you're working. You can work digitally, I know everybody's got their phones, so if they need to, they can, right? Who knows if they actually had streaming services at the pub. Apparently it was this Oasis tribute band. What could be better than that? Your wonderwall of snow. I don't know. I'm glad it wasn't me.
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What We're Watching: Honduras bracing for post election upheavals
Honduras braces for post election upheavals (again). Leftist opposition candidate Xiomara Castro jumped out to a sizable early lead in Sunday's Honduran presidential and legislative elections, but her rival is also claiming victory in a vote already marred by fears of violence and several confirmed cyberattacks on voting systems. Castro's main opponent is businessman and capital city mayor Nasry Asfura, candidate of the ruling center-right National Party. If Castro wins, she would become the Central American country's first female president, and the first leftist to hold power since her husband, Manuel Zelaya, was ousted in a coup 12 years ago. The stakes are high for Honduras, which has been wracked by gang violence, sky-high murder rates, and poverty for years. Widespread irregularities in the 2017 re-election of current president Juan Orlando Hernandez led to days of deadly violence, and Hernandez himself has since been placed under US investigation for ties to drug traffickers. Outside of Honduras both Mexico and the US will be watching closely — hundreds of thousands of Hondurans have fled instability in their home country in recent years, traversing Mexico to seek opportunity in the USA: after Mexicans, Hondurans are currently the second most common nationality apprehended at the US southern border.
What We're Watching: Omicron sparks fear and restrictions, Honduras' elections, Modi plays politics with farmers, EU calls for migrant pact with UK, Kyiv on alert
The omicron wars: Can we really afford to lock down again? In response to the new omicron variant first discovered by South African scientists, many countries have reintroduced pandemic travel restrictions that we thought were long behind us. Israel and Morocco have banned all foreign visitors, while tougher rules on quarantining and travel have also been enforced in the UK, Australia, Singapore and parts of Europe. Meanwhile, travelers from southern African countries have been banned from entering almost everywhere. Scientists say that it is still too early to say how infectious the new variant is, or how resistant it might be to vaccines. This disruption comes just as many economies were starting to reopen after more than 20-months of pandemic closures and chaos. The new restrictions are already triggering a fierce debate: some say that we are now in the endemic stage of the pandemic and that it is both unsustainable – and economically and psychologically harmful – to keep locking down every time a new variant surfaces. Others, like Israel's PM Naftali Bennett, say we are in the throes of a new "state of emergency," and that we can't afford to take any chances. What do you think?
Honduras braces for post election upheavals (again). Leftist opposition candidate Xiomara Castro jumped out to a sizable early lead in Sunday’s Honduran presidential and legislative elections, but her rival is also claiming victory in a vote already marred by fears of violence and several confirmed cyberattacks on voting systems. Castro’s main opponent is businessman and capital city mayor Nasry Asfura, candidate of the ruling center-right National Party. If Castro wins, she would become the Central American country’s first female president, and the first leftist to hold power since her husband, Manuel Zelaya, was ousted in a coup 12 years ago. The stakes are high for Honduras, which has been wracked by gang violence, sky-high murder rates, and poverty for years. Widespread irregularities in the 2017 re-election of current president Juan Orlando Hernandez led to days of deadly violence, and Hernandez himself has since been placed under US investigation for ties to drug traffickers. Outside of Honduras both Mexico and the US will be watching closely — hundreds of thousands of Hondurans have fled instability in their home country in recent years, traversing Mexico to seek opportunity in the USA: after Mexicans, Hondurans are currently the second most common nationality apprehended at the US southern border.
Modi plays politics with farmers. The Indian government's recent climbdown on three agricultural laws was a rare concession from Modi, a popular, strong-willed nationalist who came to power in 2014 and has refused to back down on contentious and oft-criticized policy issues – like decimating India's cash money supply, revoking Kashmir's autonomous status, or amending the country's citizenship laws to effectively exclude Muslims. Now, farmers unions seem to smell blood in the water. While many are indeed thrilled that Modi has done away with the farming reforms, which would no longer have guaranteed minimum prices for crops, giving more power to big business, many see this concession as a shrewd political move. Early next year elections will be held in Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state and an agricultural stronghold which traditionally backs Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party. But the BJP has lost support there in recent months because of the agricultural laws. Still, Modi hasn't won over farmers just yet: farm unions want the government to write certain "minimum support prices" into law, and to expand the number of crops that are given these government price protections. But a law like that won't be popular with powerful agriculture corporations. Will Modi do it anyway?
EU calls for fresh migrant pact with UK. Just days after 27 migrants died trying to cross the English Channel from France to the UK, officials from four EU states met Sunday to call for a fresh migration policy agreement with the UK. That came after days of overt acrimony between London and Paris: PM Boris Johnson published a letter — on Twitter, no less — that called for joint patrols and faulted the French for the tragedy. Unsurprisingly, France objected to that, and promptly disinvited the British from the Sunday meeting on migration. The EU pledged to step up aerial patrols of the Channel but said that a border framework with the UK is urgently needed. With this much post-Brexit bad blood flowing across the Channel, is that even possible?
A coup in Kyiv? "I have received information that a coup will happen in our country on 1 December." So said Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky during an extraordinary news conference last week. The plot, according to Zelensky, involves one of Ukraine's wealthiest men with the backing of sinister (presumably Russian) forces. The accusation comes at a time of high anxiety in Kyiv as Russia has amassed more than 100,000 troops along Ukraine's borders for reasons that Russia hasn't clearly explained. What's happening here? We've already written that Ukrainian and Western fears of a Russian troop invasion of Ukraine are highly exaggerated. Russia would win any battle fought with Ukrainian forces, but a war and occupation of Ukrainian territory would come with big costs and risks for the Kremlin. But there's also no reason to believe that Ukraine's military or population would tolerate, let alone support, a Russian-backed coup in Kyiv. Tensions are high and likely to run higher, but war and revolution remain highly unlikely outcomes.