Hernández spent an unprecedented amount on his election campaign. His law-and-order ticket struck a popular chord: Honduras has the highest murder rate in the world, with 22 killings a day in a country of just 8.5 million people. It is also the second-poorest country in the Americas (next to Haiti). Runner-up candidate Xiomara Castro of the Libre Party (who gained 28 per cent of the vote) ran on a platform of social justice, vowing a transfer of power from a corrupt and exploitative establishment. The election was preceded by violence, including attacks on Libre activists and others. Since May 2012 there have been 15 armed attacks against the party, with 18 Libre activists killed.
The political culture of Honduras remains poisoned by the 2009 military coup that overthrew the elected government of Manuel Zelaya (Castro’s husband) once he took a turn to the Left and tried to introduce a minimum wage and to rewrite Honduras’ pro-company mining laws. It seems unlikely that Hernández’s call to move beyond the coup and make common cause to solve the country’s problems will fall on anything but deaf ears.
