Political Crisis in Honduras as President’s Family Tied to Trafficking

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Two weeks after InSight Crime released a video that showed the Honduran president’s brother-in-law negotiating with drug traffickers, the government has avoided proposing significant reforms in favor of portraying the publication of the video as a political plot.

Just hours after the story was published, President Xiomara Castro delivered a 19-minute national broadcast flanked by her security and defense ministers.

“A plan to destroy my democratic socialist government is underway,” Castro declared to the country. “Dark forces … with the complicity of the corporate media, are reorganizing in our country to stage a new coup d’etat that the people must repel.”

SEE ALSO: Narco Video Shows Traffickers Discussing Bribes With Honduras President’s Brother-in-Law

While Castro condemned “negotiations between drug traffickers and politicians,” she also distanced herself and her party, Libertad y Refundación (popularly known as Libre), from the actions of her brother-in-law Carlos Zelaya. At a later press conference, she described his conduct as an “error” committed “without informing” the party’s leadership.

In recent days, the president and government officials have also ramped up oblique references to a coup d’etat and increasingly lashed out at the press.

Libre convened a national rally in the streets of Tegucigalpa on September 14, coinciding with Honduras’ Independence Day celebrations. Castro gave another national address, this time warning Hondurans that her adversaries were using the media to spread “poison and lies.” The speech was delivered in front of a large screen that read “popular power against coup d’etats.”

Honduran journalist Óscar Estrada told InSight Crime that Libre’s talk of a coup plot is not unprecedented, though the government seemed caught off guard by the current scandal. He added that InSight Crime’s video should not have been a surprise for the government, given that its existence had been frequently referenced in drug trafficking trials.

“At the communications level, there isn’t much they can do,” Estrada added. “The most they can hope for is for the scandal to end, but it won’t end because next year is an election year.”

InSight Crime Analysis The revelation that the president’s brother-in-law negotiated with drug traffickers has shaken Castro’s government, but the administration’s response to the crisis signals little appetite to address the vulnerability of state institutions to infiltration by organized criminal groups.

Carlos Zelaya and his son both resigned from their respective posts as secretary of congress and defense minister just days after InSight Crime contacted a government official for comment before the video and story were published. To date, no further measures have been announced to fortify Honduras’ institutions in the wake of the scandal.

While the resignations of the president’s family were seen as a positive step Joaquín Mejía, a constitutional lawyer, told InSight Crime that he was disappointed with the government’s overall response. “As a citizen, I expected three things from Castro’s National Address: An apology … a re-installation of the country’s extradition agreement with the United States, and a profound process of restructuring of the armed forces.”

“The Armed Forces are the guardians of the electoral process in Honduras,” Mejía told InSight Crime. “They’re also obviously penetrated by drug trafficking, and nobody is talking about it.”

The ongoing scandal has the potential to upend the country’s 2025 elections. Castro’s party won a landslide victory in 2021, in part driven by discontent with the previous government of Juan Orlando Hernández. During the electoral campaign, Libre frequently highlighted the links between the National Party and drug trafficking, presented itself as the alternative to Hernández’ “narco dictatorship,” and celebrated the prospect of his extradition.

Analysts consulted by InSight Crime suggested that while corruption within Libre was not comparable to the entrenched corruption of the National Party, the credibility of Castro’s government had been dealt a blow by the scandal currently surrounding the President’s family.

SEE ALSO: Special Series: The Rise and Fall of Honduras Ex-President Juan Orlando Hernández

“Every time Libre tries to recover the narrative, the opposition will pull out the card of Carlos’s video and dismantle the debate,” Estrada told InSight Crime.

While the government stokes fears of a coup and touts its recent revocation of the extradition agreement with the United States as a victory for Honduras’ national sovereignty, it appears to be leaving other measures to combat organized crime’s influence on the country’s politics unaddressed.

Aníbal Cálix, a former congressional representative for Honduras’ Anti-Corruption Party, described the government’s decision to cancel Honduras’ extradition as “unjustifiable.” However, he noted that there is potential to strengthen domestic campaign finance regulations to curb the influence of drug money in politics—an issue that now affects all of Honduras’ major political parties.

“There are currently no campaign finance limits on political parties,” he told InSight Crime. “There are actions that can be taken to improve this situation, but there is no political will.”

Mejía also emphasized the need to strengthen the country’s judicial system. “The Attorney General’s office remains penetrated by drug trafficking interests. Restructuring and purging the institution is required, as is giving it a sufficient budget.” Such reforms are unlikely in the near term, he conceded, given Libre’s minority in Congress and a lack of political will.

Featured image: President Xiomara Castro addresses a Libre rally during Honduras’ Independence Day weekend. Credit: The Honduran Government.

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