Castro, a democratic socialist, gained a landslide victory in closing yr’s presidential election after campaigning on an intensive time table to counter years of governance plagued through corruption and scandal. She promised to relieve poverty and liberalize abortion rules.
“2 hundred years have handed since our independence was once proclaimed. We are breaking chains and we are breaking traditions,” Castro mentioned in her inauguration speech.
Castro’s celebration, the Freedom and Refoundation Birthday celebration (Libre) gained the November 2021 vote with a lead of greater than 14 issues over her nearest opponent, Nasry Asfura, the capital’s mayor and candidate for outgoing President Juan Orlando Hernández’s Nationwide Birthday celebration.
Successful 51% of the vote percentage and 1.7 million votes, Castro garnered the biggest collection of votes within the nation’s historical past, underscoring the general public’s urge for food for exchange.
Castro, 62, devoted her early years to circle of relatives existence, marrying businessman and flesh presser Manuel Zelaya on the age of nineteen and elevating their 4 kids whilst managing his companies, in accordance her Libre Birthday celebration website online.
Zelaya was once elected president of Honduras however was once ousted in a 2009 army coup. Castro’s political occupation started together with her push to get her husband go back to place of job, and in 2013 and 2017, she ran for president.
Castro’s promise to stamp out the systemic issues at the back of poverty, together with financial lack of confidence, inequality, corruption and violence — one of the vital root reasons of migration to the north — isn’t just well liked by the citizens, however has made her a stupendous best friend for US President Joe Biden’s management.
Harris publicly congratulated Castro on Thursday, and highlighted how the 2 nations can paintings in combination on bolstering financial prosperity and tackling corruption.
“I would love to publicly congratulate you in your election,” Harris mentioned throughout a bilateral assembly with the newly inaugurated president. “I look ahead to many spaces of partnership, together with the paintings we will be able to do to deal with the commercial prosperity of Honduras.”
On Sunday, a bunch of Libre lawmakers rebelled over Castro’s select for congressional speaker, resulting in a break up within the newly elected Congress that would doubtlessly see the Nationwide Birthday celebration taking again keep watch over of the legislature.
That fracture signifies that Castro is going through a truth of now main the rustic however with out the strengthen of her a few of her celebration and its allies in Congress.
CNN’s Priscilla Alvarez, Kara Fox, Sam Fossum and Jasmine Wright contributed to this file.
