The Japan Times - Trump threats reverberate as Hondurans vote for president

Honduras could be the next country in Latin America, after Argentina and Bolivia, to swing right after years of leftist rule.

Polls show three candidates neck-and-neck in the race to succeed outgoing President Xiomara Castro: 60-year-old Rixi Moncada of the ruling leftist Libre party, 72-year-old TV host Salvador Nasralla of the Liberal Party, and 67-year-old Nasry "Tito" Asfura of the right-wing National Party.

Trump has threatened to cut US support for one of Latin America's poorest countries if Asfura loses.

"If he (Asfura) doesn't win, the United States will not be throwing good money after bad," Truth wrote Friday on his Truth Social platform, echoing threats he made in support of Argentine President Javier Milei's party in that country's recent midterms.

In a stunning move on Friday, Trump announced he would pardon former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez, of Asfura's National Party, who is serving a 45-year prison sentence in the United States for cocaine trafficking and other charges.

Moncada accused the US leader on Saturday of interfering in the campaign.

Some Hondurans welcomed Trump's interventionism, saying they hoped that he might show clemency towards Honduran migrants in the United States if his man won.

"We have Donald Trump on our side!" Erick Baca, a 20-year-old student in Tegucigalpa told AFP happily.

Esmeralda Rodriguez, a 56-year-old fruit vendor, rejected Trump's threats however, saying: "I vote for whomever I please, not because of what Trump has said."

Nearly 30,000 Honduran migrants have been deported from the United States since Trump returned to office on January.

He has also revoked the temporary protected status of a further 51,000 Honduran migrants, making them vulnerable to expulsion.

The clampdown has dealt a severe blow to the country of 11 million people, which received $10 billion in remittances from overseas citizens in 2024, representing 27 percent of GDP.

- Fears of election fraud -

Moncada has portrayed the election as a choice between a "coup-plotting oligarchy" -- a reference to the right's backing of the 2009 military ouster of then-president Manuel Zelaya -- and the current government's brand of democratic socialism.

Moncada has held ministerial portfolios under both Zelaya and Castro, who are married.

Nasralla also served in Castro's government but fell out with the ruling party and has since shifted to the right.

Asfura was a building entrepreneur before being elected mayor of the capital, Tegucigalpa, where he served two terms.

Preemptive accusations of election fraud, made both by the ruling party and opposition, have sown mistrust in the vote and sparked fears of post-election unrest.

Besides electing a president, Hondurans will on Sunday also choose members of the unicameral Congress and local mayors.

- 'Narco state' president pardoned -

Asfura has distanced himself from his party's figurehead Hernandez, who was imprisoned in the United States last year after being convicted of turning Honduras into a "narco state" while president between 2014 and 2022.

"I have no ties (with Hernandez)...the party is not responsible for his personal actions," Asfura told AFP on Friday.

Long a transit point for cocaine exported from Colombia to the United States, Honduras is now also a producer of the drug.

Despite making narco-traffickers the target of a major military build-up in the Caribbean, Trump on Friday took Hernandez's defense.

Announcing his decision to pardon the former president, Trump claimed the Honduran "has been, according to many people that I greatly respect, treated very harshly and unfairly," without elaborating.

K.Inoue--JT