Is Honduras Moving Right?

Nearly two years after Argentina elected Javier Milei as the first libertarian president in the world and six months after Ecuador reelected its law and order President Daniel Noboa, the spotlight in the Western Hemisphere is on Honduras and whether the Central American nation of 11 million will follow in what appears to be a swing to the right in formerly all-leftist Latin America.

Hondurans won't choose a successor to termed-out President Xiomara Castro — the nation's first female president and wife of former President Manuel Zelaya — until Nov. 30.  Bolivia and Chile, both of which will elect new presidents on Aug. 17 and Nov. 16, respectively, are also countries in which right-of-center candidates are better than even money to be elected.

But Honduras is drawing special attention in large part because the early front-runner in the race, former Tegucigalpa Mayor Nasry "Tito" Asfura, is a genuine fiscal and cultural conservative who is inarguably the antithesis of Castro and Zelaya, the conjugal far leftists who have been mainstays in Honduran politics for a generation. 

Four years ago, despite polls showing Asfura and Castro in a tight contest, the former first lady won convincingly.  Now, facing Defense Secretary Rixi Moncada, a protege of Castro and Zelaya, and Vice President Salvador Nasralla of the Liberal Party (and 11 others),  Asfura, 67, is rated the favorite to capture the winner-take-all contest in the fall. 

Asked by Newsmax in a recent interview if he felt the analogy to Argentina's Milei was accurate, Asfura replied: "We have a different view of politics. He is an economist who got into politics a short time before he was elected president and I have been in politics, as a member of the National Congress and as mayor, for 25 years. So we have different ways of fighting for democracy, but we are both looking for the same goals."

By "the same goals" as Milei, Asfura explained, he means "transforming government by reducing it, reducing the expenses of the federal state, and promoting policies to reduce taxes enough to really help people make private investments — the most important investments of all, because they will generate more revenue."

The former mayor also vowed to "kill the excessive bureaucracy and regulations so to facilitate businesses opening quickly."

Another key point to the conservative hopeful's agenda is to reduce what he calls "emigration." Not even the outgoing Castro administration, Asfura told us, "knows how many Hondurans have fled the country, but there are an estimated 2 million Hondurans in the U.S., legal and otherwise, and not having job opportunities creates a level of insecurity.  When we increase private investment, we are generating jobs and we resolve the situation."

(The Trump administration announced earlier this year it would end Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, for an estimated 60,000 migrants from Asia and Central America, including Honduras and Nicaragua, by Sept. 8.  A federal judge recently delayed that order).

But Honduras has an immigration problem of its own, Asfura believes. The present leftist government, he told us, "brings Cuban doctors in and pays them, and this is at a time when our national health system is about to collapse. Think about it — Cuban doctors are being paid, and Honduran doctors are not always being paid."

He vowed to change this situation immediately upon becoming president: "I will regulate the entrance of Cuban doctors to Honduras and give priority [of payment for health services] to Honduran doctors."

Newsmax asked Asfura the question any prospective head of state in a foreign country is asked: what he thought of President Donald Trump.

"I share his principles on strengthening the private sector," he replied, "At the end of the day, Trump is fighting for the democracies in Latin America and is in favor of strengthening democracy in our whole region."

Asfura added that "every country has its own politics, and one can't interfere in the politics of other countries. I look forward to have the opportunity to sit down and negotiate on behalf of my country."