HONDURAS: On Saturday, thousands of demonstrators flooded the streets of the Honduran capital in protest against President Xiomara Castro, a leftist leader enraged by efforts to engineer what they claim is an unconstitutional power grab.
In a protest sponsored by opposition parties, demonstrators in the Central American nation accused the Castro administration of attempting to transform Honduras by personally selecting public officials.
The president of the right-wing National Party, David Chávez, told reporters on Saturday, “We are here to defend democracy because we do not want a dictatorship in Honduras like those in Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua, which is what the leftist government of President Xiomara Castro is leading us to.”
The opposition protest was triggered when, on November 1, the ruling party appointed a new interim chief prosecutor without undergoing a congressional vote.
Members of President Castro’s Liberty and Refoundation Party (Libre) utilised a committee vote, where their majority presence secured the nomination despite constituting a minority in the overall Congress. The opposition contends that this action is unconstitutional.
The Honduran constitution grants the committee the authority to select an acting chief prosecutor in the event that the position becomes vacant, but it also says that 86 votes from the 128-member unicameral legislature are required to elect the attorney general.
Castro, a self-described democratic socialist who took office as Honduras’ first female president in January 2022, has worked to improve ties with the nations of Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua.
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