TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) — Honduras’ defense minister on Monday appeared on a path to become the governing party’s presidential candidate, even as electoral authorities continued tallying ballots from Sunday’s primary election.
Honduras’ three main parties chose their candidates Sunday for November’s general election. Eleven smaller parties will choose their candidates through their own internal processes.
With fewer than half of the ballots tallied Monday, Defense Minister Rixi Moncada, who has the support of President Xiomara Castro, had more than 90% of the votes from the leftist LIBRE party.
Salvador Nasralla, who helped Castro win the presidency in the 2021 election by ending his independent candidacy to join her coalition, had nearly 60% of the votes for the conservative Liberal party. He served as Castro’s vice president, before leaving the administration, saying he had been marginalized.
And for the conservative National party, former Tegucigalpa Mayor Nasry Asfura had 76% of the vote, well ahead of former first lady Ana García, the wife of ex-President Juan Orlando Hernández, who is serving a 45-year prison sentence in the United States on drug trafficking charges.
Sunday’s vote was plagued with problems. Some voting centers didn’t open until Sunday afternoon, prompting frustrated voters to burn tires in protest.
The election comes at a time when Castro — Honduras’ first female leader — has a tense relationship with the United States.
She had raised the possibility of ending U.S. access to an air base the U.S. military uses for regional operations and said that she would withdraw from the extradition treaty that sent her predecessor to the U.S. on drug trafficking charges, before eventually backtracking. Her own extended family has been dogged by allegations of ties to drug traffickers.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio notably left Honduras off of his itinerary when he made his first overseas trip to Central America last month since taking up the post.
The general election is scheduled for Nov. 30.
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