![\"Voters](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/ap25334657043870.jpg\")
<\/p>\n TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras
\n AP
\n \u00a0\u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n Hondurans began casting ballots Sunday to elect a new president only days after US President Donald Trump intervened in a close race with an endorsement of one candidate and announced that he would pardon a former president.\n <\/p>\n
\n At a voting site in the capital, the country\u2019s major parties were present outside with tables, banners, flags and music. Several dozen people lined up outside the gate to the neighborhood school and were allowed in about 30 minutes after the official start of voting.\n <\/p>\n
\n In addition to a new president, voters will elect a new Congress, as well as hundreds of local positions.\n <\/p>\n
Main candidates<\/p>\n
\n Among the five presidential candidates on the ballot, polls indicated three had a chance to win and were finishing in close competition. They are:\n <\/p>\n
\n 1. Rixi Moncada who served as finance and later as defense secretary in the current administration of President Xiomara Castro and is running for the social democrat LIBRE or Liberty and Re-foundation party.\n <\/p>\n
\n 2. Salvador Nasralla, who is making his fourth bid for the presidency, this time as the candidate for the conservative Liberal Party.\n <\/p>\n
\n 3. Former Tegucigalpa Mayor Nasry \u201cTito\u201d Asfura, who carries the mantle of the also conservative National Party.\n <\/p>\n
\n Moncada promises to \u201cdemocratize\u201d an economy still defined by extreme wealth and poverty. Nasralla casts himself as the outsider who can clean up the country\u2019s endemic corruption. And Asfura is trying to restore the National Party as a pro-business force tarnished by previous bouts of presidential corruption.\n <\/p>\n
\n Honduras\u2019 security situation has improved in recent years as homicides across the region continue to fall, but it still has Central America\u2019s highest homicide rate. Hondurans say security and jobs remain their top priorities, despite an economy that has strengthened during Castro\u2019s administration.\n <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n The presidential contest had mostly focused on candidates trading accusations of plans to manipulate the vote until this past week when Trump endorsed Asfura while attacking his opponents, the latest signal of the United States\u2019 renewed interest in Latin America.\n <\/p>\n
\n Then Trump shocked Hondurans by announcing Friday that he would pardon ex-President Juan Orlando Hern\u00e1ndez, who was serving a 45-year sentence in a US prison for helping drug traffickers moving cocaine to the United States.\n <\/p>\n
\n It was unclear what impact Trump would have on the election, but it was the latest show of the US government\u2019s willingness to directly involve itself in the region and came at a time of already heightened tensions because of the US military buildup in the Caribbean and Trump\u2019s threats against Venezuela President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro.\n <\/p>\n
![\"Juan](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/ap24178564727120.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n Hondurans were left unnerved by the sudden US attention, and hoping at a minimum for a peaceful election.\n <\/p>\n
\n Walking by a polling site in the capital, Ruben Dar\u00edo Molina, a 55-year-old security guard, said that he wouldn\u2019t vote Sunday because he had to work. But he had choice words for Trump, whose administration deported him back to his native Honduras a month ago after 20 years living in the United States.\n <\/p>\n
\n He had worked in landscaping in Miami, but was picked up by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, one day in the street, separating him from his US citizen wife and son.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cI don\u2019t believe in politicians,\u201d he said. \u201cPoliticians are garbage. They use you like a ladder (to move up).\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Cristian Zelaya, a 42-year-old systems engineer, said that his priority in the voting booth was \u201cto try to rescue the country from a future like Venezuela.\u201d He said that he wanted to get the \u201cCommunists\u201d out, in reference to the governing social democrat LIBRE party, which he said made big promises, but didn\u2019t deliver.\n <\/p>\n
\n He praised Trump\u2019s decision to pardon Hern\u00e1ndez, who he considered a good president, but said it had no impact on his decision.\n <\/p>\n
\n In another part of the capital, Carlos Alberto Figueroa, a 71-year-old retiree, said that he wanted Moncada to continue President Castro\u2019s work, which he said had already resulted in \u201cdevelopment, a better economy and security.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n But he too discounted Trump\u2019s impact, saying the Honduran people would decide.\n <\/p>\n
\n Nancy Serrano, 20, was voting for the first time and top of mind for her was \u201cenough with corruption.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Serrano is studying to be a teacher and she worries that the high prevalence of corruption limits opportunities for the youth and eats away at the economy.\n <\/p>\n
\n In announcing the start of voting Sunday, National Electoral Council President Ana Paola Hall called on the candidates to respect the rules to not declare victory before the council confirms a winner.\n <\/p>\n
\n Polls are due to close at 5 p.m. local time Sunday. The council planned to provide preliminary results at 9 p.m., but has up to 30 days to officially announce the final result.\n <\/p>\n
\n More than 4,000 Honduran and foreign election observers had fanned out to the nearly 6,000 polling places across the country.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras AP \u00a0\u2014\u00a0 Hondurans began casting ballots Sunday to elect a new president only days after US…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":317224,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-317223","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=317223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317223\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/317224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=317223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=317223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=317223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}