She is frequently portrayed in commercials - as well as on ominous red billboards throughout the country - as a Trojan horse for communism, much like her husband was depicted by opponents in the late 2000s.ĭespite the campaign against her, Castro, a candidate for the center-left Libre party, holds a narrow lead over Asfura in opinion polls. Her husband had been accused of taking bribes while he was president - a charge he denied.Ĭastro proposes loosening Honduras’ notoriously strict abortion laws and has suggested convening a National Assembly to rewrite the constitution to be more inclusive. On the country’s north coast, the Afro-Indigenous Garifuna population has been engaged in years-long battles with tourism and palm oil companies - long favored by the National Party over Indigenous citizens - which have sought to take over their coveted beachfront land.ĭarwin Centeno, a Garifuna fisherman from Triunfo de la Cruz whose cousin Sneider Centeno was a prominent Garifuna activist abducted by a police-linked death squad in July 2020, said the National Party’s legacy is one of “committing damage against our community, disrespecting our ethnic rights.”īut the National Party is skilled at mobilizing voters, which could stop the progressive Castro from becoming the country’s first woman president with her promises to wipe away the old ways of power. If Asfura wins, Rivas said, it will be “more corruption, more criminality, more persecution and more of the same.” Land rights activist Yoni Rivas comes from the Aguán Valley, where hundreds have been killed in battles between peasants and palm oil corporations, and where paramilitary groups connected to the Honduran army are driving migration out of the country. One of the trademarks of Hernandez’s time in office - aside from doling out benefits and keeping the allegiance of government workers - has been the expansion of the army into the public space and creation of paramilitary and elite units implicated in human rights violations.