Honduras bishops alert about risks of ungovernability in elections

The Catholic Church in Honduras warned that, towards the general elections of November 30, the country is going through a scenario of growing polarization and faces various problems that could “confuse and lead us towards ungovernability”

That day, more than six million citizens are called to the polls to elect the next president of the Republic, 128 deputies to the National Congress, 298 mayors and 20 representatives before the Central American Parliament.

The presidential contest is dominated by three main candidates. The ruling party, freedom and re -foundation (free), postulates Rixi Moncada, close to President Xiomara Castro. The National Party, the main opposition force, proposes Nasry Asfura, former mayor of Tegucigalpa and candidate in the previous elections. For its part, the Liberal Party presents Salvador Nasralla, former presidential -free of the vice president in other countries – who resigned from his position in April 2024 to seek the State Headquarters again.

Polarization before the elections

Through a Statement released on June 5the Episcopal Conference of Honduras (CEH) expressed concern about the “polarization in which the environment that leads us to the general elections to be held on the last Sunday of November of this year is inserted.”

The bishops denounced that there is a “tension attached to the various actors of the contestant political parties”, and pointed out that, instead of promoting respectful competition, they are promoting “discrediting campaigns and the use of social networks to feed violence and lie.”

“We are concerned that these conflicts are being used and manipulated by groups that move in the underground corridors of organized crime, to confuse and lead us towards ungovernability,” the prelates warned.

They also warned about “voices that seek to question the celebration of the general elections.”

Faced with this panorama, the bishops called on citizens to “reject these distracting tendencies that pay nothing to confidence and social and political stability, so necessary for an electoral campaign in peace, tranquility and in harmony.”

To the authorities in charge of the elections, they were asked to act “regardless of partisan interests and groups, to attend the common good of the Nation” and thus be possible “free, clean and transparent”.

Finally, they demanded that the Clean Policy Unit – Organism in charge of auditing the economic resources of the candidates and parties – that prevents “avoiding that funds of doubtful origin enter the political campaigns, because then the democracy would splashes the democracy by which we long to travel both in the present and in the future”.