“The labour movement must unequivocally stand in solidarity with the people & government of Honduras against any attempt, internal or external, to subvert the election campaign.”
By Tim Young
Honduras’ ruling Liberty and Refoundation Party (LIBRE), in office since President Xiomara Castro’s runaway victory in the 2021 presidential election, is gearing up for elections later in November amid warning signs that the government is in danger of destabilisation stemming from the Trump administration.
In August, the Honduran authorities thwarted a plot to assassinate former Honduran President and Libre Party coordinator Manuel Zelaya and overthrow President Xiomara Castro.
Plans to assassinate progressive political leaders in Honduras are not unknown. Former President Zelaya, elected in 2006 after decades of right-wing rule by defeating the conservative National party candidate Porfirio Lobo Sosa, has revealed there were plans to kill him in 2009 before he was overthrown in a military coup and forced into exile. The coup was widely condemned by governments across Latin America, the EU, and the OAS, but not by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for the United States.
Following Zelaya’s ousting, successive right-wing Honduran governments continued to be supported by the US, despite evidence of electoral fraud, widespread corruption and the criminalisation and repression of political dissent, including assassinations of activists.
Those right-wing governments – serving foreign, and in particular US, interests in the region – increased poverty, marginalised communities and spawned widespread violence and repression.
Xiomara Castro’s victory for the LIBRE party in 2021 represented a turn in the tide. Committing herself to pursuing social justice in the distribution of wealth and in national income, she introduced progressive economic policies such as promoting a fuel subsidy for the poor and abolishing special economic zones, banned open-pit mining and reversed previous policies granting concessions in the exploitation of rivers, hydrographic basins and national parks.
In foreign policy, she restored diplomatic relations with Venezuela and opened them with China and engaged with the ALBA-TCP project of political and economic integration of Latin American and Caribbean countries to reduce Honduras’s external dependency.
When it came to Israel’s genocide on Gaza, Honduras has been at the forefront of the global movements against the illegal war, recalling its ambassador to Israel in 2023 in light of “the serious humanitarian situation the civilian Palestinian population is suffering in the Gaza Strip”.
No doubt these moves, alongside the aforementioned attempts to clip the wings of the multinationals, have further irked Trump and co- who are still of the colonial view Latin America should be their ‘backyard.’
Much is therefore currently at stake in this coming election, especially given the United States’ history of destabilising governments in the region.
Last year, President Castro suspended the US-Honduran extradition treaty, prompted by hostile statements by the US ambassador, Laura Dogu, criticising Honduran government officials for meeting Venezuelan government members sanctioned by the US. Some high-ranking military officers — almost certainly linked to the US embassy — hoped to use Dogu’s threats to press the chief of the Honduran armed forces to resign but were thwarted by President Castro publicly labelling Dogu’s threats as part of a plan to undermine, and ultimately overthrow, her elected government.
Most recently, US Attorney General Pam Bondi has accused Honduras of being in league with Venezuela by facilitating drug trafficking in return for cash bribes. This prompted the Honduran government to respond that “the government of President Xiomara Castro is leading a historic offensive against the transnational crime of drug trafficking, carrying out the largest cocaine seizures ever recorded”.
Amid this turbulence, the new LIBRE candidate for the presidency is Rixi Moncada, who served as Castro’s Secretary of National Defence until May 2025. Her campaign recently held a massive and highly successful rally in San Pedro Sula attended by 30,000 Hondurans, representing a major step in consolidating LIBRE’s grassroots base and reaffirming its commitment to democracy, peace and social justice.
Moncada’s popular campaigning slogan of “Sigue Rixi, sigue la Revolución” (“Follow Rixi, follow the Revolution”) encapsulates LIBRE’s commitment resistance to neo-liberalism and US domination. At rallies around the country she is setting out an ambitious programme that will seek to build further on the Castro government’s achievements, while seeking to further break the backs of the oligarchs’ US-backed reaction.
In line with her party’s title, Moncada’s objective of a “refounded” Honduras is in tune with other governments and regional movements committed to redistributing wealth and power and expanding democratic participation.
But despite Moncada’s strong election campaign building on Xiomara Castro’s presidency, resistance to this programme can be expected. LIBRE currently holds the presidency but only about a third of the seats in Congress, limiting its effectiveness. Powerful economic elites benefit from the deep inequalities that mark the country. Conservative forces are strongly in evidence in the media, the judicial system and other parts of the state, while the US has a long history of successfully bending Honduras to its own economic and political interests.
The labour movement in Britain must unequivocally stand in solidarity with the people and government of Honduras against any attempt, internal or external, to subvert the election campaign and the elections themselves, and call on the British government to oppose any illegal or unconstitutional attempt to oust the current elected government of President Castro or a newly successful LIBRE administration.
- Tim Young is a longstanding Latin America solidarity campaigner.
- You can add your name to a statement in solidarity with Honduras here.
- LIVERPOOL EVENT: ¡Viva la solidaridad! Stand with Latin America Against Trump – Monday September 29, 18.30. With Martina Pesce, Argentinian campaigner against the far-right // Francisco Dominguez // María Perez Ramos, MORENA supporter, Mexico // Richard Burgon MP // Jess Barnard, Labour NEC // Louise Regan, NEU // Gawain Little, GFTU // John McDonnell MP. You can register here.
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