A contentious election in Honduras gave ruling party candidate Juan Orlando Hernandez 34 percent of the vote in the “eight-party race”, allowing him to claim an early victory with 80 percent of the total vote counted. Former President Manuel Zelaya’s wife, Xiomara Castro, has contested the election results. Fraud has been argued as a possible reason for Juan Hernandez’s victory.

Honduras has a long history fraught with violent overthrows and fraud filled elections, with Xiomara Castro’s husband being ousted in a coup in 2009. The coup was in response to Manuel Zelaya attempted referendum on the nations constitution, with brought the ire of many political groups in the nation.

Honduras, according to the New York Times, is one of Latin America’s “poorest and most unequal countries” with a fraught social structure that may not “withstand a new bout of political uncertainty” following the election. This looks like it may be the case.

These two major candidates are both claiming victory in the nation of 7.9 million, arguing they represent the populist mentality in the nation. Xiomara Castro respresents those liberals disillusioned in the post-coup. Hernandez represents the right wing, arguing for a strong military police to help quell the violence and consolidate the government’s power over the lawless nation. Castro posted on her twitter following the election results that she “will defend the will of the people as it was expressed at the polls.”

Perhaps the nation is behind Xiomara Castro. Manuel Zelaya ousted in 2009 led many “teachers, feminists, and young people” to violently protest. The media in Honduras promoted the “changing of the guard”, a huge contrast to what many in the streets felt.

Manuel Zelaya left-leaning beliefs were in deep contrast to the “business and political groups” whose right winged views were deeply ingrained into the nation.

 

Learn about poverty in Honduras

 

In response to the coup, new political parties formed. The Freedom and Re-foundation was born out of this aggression. Current presidential candidate Xiomara Castro has become the political party’s leader. The organization functions through it’s combination of leftist leaning groups, from intellectuals, gay right activist, and “former liberals who defected” from “centre-right” Liberal Party following the coup.

The real victim of the political instability are not the political parties, but rather the nation itself. In the wake of Manuel Zelaya’s coup, the annual GDP growth for has “been only 3.5 percent” compared to the average GDP growth of “5.7 percent.” Economic inequality has been growing since 2010, with Honduras now having the “most in-equal distribution of income in Latin America” with “100 percent of all income gains” going to the “top 10 percent of Hondurans.”

Average Honduran citizens have been struggling, and the political situation following the election may worsen it. Protests have already begun in retaliation to Hernandez’s claimed victory.

– Joseph Abay

Sources: USA Today, CNN, Al Jazeera, CBS News, BBC, New York Times, Al Jazeera