On March 9, Honduras held primary elections to elect who will contest in the presidential race, local mayoral elections, and seats in the legislature. The country’s general elections will be held in November 2025.
In the 2021 elections, the Honduran people ended the 12-year rule of the right-wing National Party, which seized power in a military coup in 2009. However, the road to recovering the country after devastating neoliberal policies, widespread corruption, and deep distrust of the state has been a long one. The country still faces major security issues and while the progressive pole has grown stronger with Xiomara Castro’s victory and government, there is growing polarization between the progressive camp and the right wing, neoliberal sectors.
Rixi Moncada, LIBRE Party
On behalf of the Freedom and Refoundation Party (LIBRE), the current Secretary of Defense, Rixi Moncada, obtained close to 92.22% of the votes in the primary elections. These results make her the undisputed candidate of the current ruling party, which is characterized by its progressive and left-wing positions. In addition, she received the most votes in the primaries. Many analysts presume that she is currently the candidate with the best prospects of winning the presidency, although the elections are still several months away.
Moncada was born in Talanga in 1965. She is a lawyer who has worked as a judge and advisor in the Public Prosecutor’s Office and Congress. A constant ally of the Honduran electoral left, she served in Juan Manuel Zelaya’s government as Secretary of State for Labor and Social Security, among other important executive positions. After the coup d’état against Zelaya, she co-founded the LIBRE Party, in which she has actively participated as an organizer and leader.
In 2019, she was appointed as councilor of the National Electoral Council and, subsequently, president of the same for barely a year as she resigned to accompany Xiomara Castro in her electoral campaign. After the electoral victory of her party, she was appointed as Secretary of Finance until 2024, the year in which she resigned to seek to be the official LIBRE candidate. However, she became Secretary again, this time of Defense, after the resignation of Juan Manuel Zelaya Rosales due to the accusations against him.
Moncada has the full backing of her party and, in this sense, of the current president of the country, Castro, which is an important factor in the development of the electoral campaign.
Salvador Nasralla, Liberal Party
One of the main opponents Moncada will have is a former ally of hers, nicknamed “the Lord of Television”, who in the primary elections obtained 59.36% of the support of the members of the Liberal Party. According to some analysts, Salvador Nasralla could be a surprise on November 30 because thanks to the support of a good part of the media opposed to the current government, his image has been framed as that of a centrist who is capable of dialoguing with diverse political positions. On his X account, Nasralla wrote “The liberal people spoke with strength and we won with force at the polls. Thank you, this triumph is yours!”
Salvador Nasralla was born in Tegicugalpa in 1953. He is an industrial engineer, but he is mainly known in Honduras for his work for 40 years as a television presenter. In 2011, he was a presidential candidate for the Anti-Corruption Party. In 2017, he also ran for president but was the candidate of an electoral alliance between the Innovation and Unity Party and the LIBRE Party, which today he seeks to defeat. In that controversial electoral process, the Honduran Electoral Authority declared that incumbent president Juan Orlando Hernández of the National Party had won the election after a long delay and several irregularities in the counting process. The apparent fraud, recognized by the Organization of American States, set off a wave of mass protests across the country which lasted several months. Dozens were killed in the violent crackdown and many were imprisoned for participating in the protests. The alliance that backed Nasralla did not recognize the results.
After the electoral fraud crisis, Nasralla founded his own party (Savior Party of Honduras), in another attempt to reach the presidency. However, he gave up his chance to run as a third party in the presidential elections to promote the victory of the LIBRE Party. However, Nasralla stated that throughout Castro’s administration, he has been increasingly relegated from important decisions, so he has sought to follow his path to the presidency.
Nasry “Tito” Asfura, National Party
For its part, the right-wing National Party chose Asfura as its next candidate for the November 30 elections. Asfura obtained 76.01% of the valid votes in the primaries of his party, which is still “wounded” after the arrest and conviction for drug trafficking of former president Juan Orlando Pérez. In a video broadcast on social media, Asfura complained about the delay in the delivery of the ballots, and thanked his supporters for their support: “The State institutions that were involved in the electoral process must be accountable to the Honduran people…They owe us an explanation.”
Asfura, born in Tegucigalpa in 1958, will seek to reverse suspicions about the once-powerful National Party. Asfura is a businessman of Palestinian descent. He has held several different positions on a local and national level, from deputy to cabinet member.
However, the position that has given him the most visibility was serving as mayor of Tegucigalpa from 2013 to 2022. He was reelected in 2017 with an overwhelming result of 77.1%. In the 2021 presidential elections, he was defeated by progressive Libre candidate Xiomara Castro, who achieved 51.2% of the valid votes, while Asfura obtained 36.93%.
