Tegucigalpa, Nov 29 (EFE).- The presidential candidate for Honduras’ ruling Liberty and Refoundation Party (Libre), Rixi Moncada, denounced on Saturday the “interference” of United States President Donald Trump in the general elections.
At a press conference, Moncada said that Trump’s announcement on Friday that he would pardon former President Juan Orlando Hernández, who is serving a 45-year sentence in the US for drug trafficking, is “a crime” and aims to “reintroduce organized crime” into Honduran politics.
Moncada said that “two specific actions were taken three days before the elections, which are totally interfering,” referring to Trump’s public support for conservative candidate Nasry Asfura and Hernández’s pardon.
She added that Trump’s messages are “campaign acts” in favor of “his puppet candidates” from the National and Liberal parties, Nasry Asfura and Salvador Nasralla, respectively.
Despite her criticism, the ruling party candidate assured that Honduras maintains “a good relationship” with the United States.
On Wednesday, Trump called on Hondurans to vote for Asfura and accused his opponents of being allies of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro.
She also claimed that Moncada is “close to communism” and that Nasralla seeks to “deceive the people” in order to divide the vote.
Moncada argued that Honduras, like other countries in the region, has been the target of a persistent “siege” by “interventionist” policies and actions that date back to colonial times and continue to this day.
”Interference policies, those of capital over the lives of human beings and their territories, are there,” she said, warning that such practices “have not stopped” and that they will continue to “fight them.”
Regarding Trump’s announced pardon of Hernández, Moncada said the move came about “because the bipartisan candidates failed to gain popular support” and accused “economic groups and the oligarchy” of attempting to bring him back “in the middle of the electoral process.”
”The oligarchy ran to Washington to get their main boss pardoned and bring him back in the middle of the electoral process,” he said.
Moncada described Hernández as “the biggest boss in the history of Honduras” and “the main representative of the two-party system,” and claimed that during his term in office, “400 tons of cocaine” were sent to the United States, leaving “a trail of murders, corruption, and 57 convictions” linked to his administration in US courts.
”The two-party system turned Honduras into a tax haven, money launderers, corrupt and corruptors, tax fraudsters (…), organized crime,” he said, adding that Xiomara Castro’s rise to power and the resistance movement have managed to curb this dynamic.
Moncada called on citizens to vote “with hope” and to prevent the return of “drug trafficking” and “opprobrious bipartisanship.” EFE
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