What happened
Honduran presidential candidate Nasry “Tito” Asfura of the conservative National Party took a narrow early lead in Sunday’s national elections, days after President Donald Trump endorsed him and criticized his two main rivals. On Friday, Trump said he would pardon the last Honduran president from the National Party, Juan Orlando Hernández, who is serving 45 years in U.S. prison for facilitating the trafficking of 500 tons of cocaine through Honduras to the U.S.
Who said what
“Tito and I can work together to fight the narco-communists and provide the necessary aid to the Honduran people,” Trump said last Wednesday on social media. “If he doesn’t win, the United States will not be throwing good money after bad.” With 43% of polling stations reporting early today, Asfura had 41% of the votes, versus 40% for Salvador Nasralla of the conservative Liberal Party and 19% for Rixi Moncada of the ruling democratic socialist LIBRE party.
Trump told reporters Sunday night that he would pardon Hernández, convicted in New York last year after a trial that exposed bribes and the use of the Honduran military to protect traffickers, because “many of the people of Honduras, they said it was a Biden setup.” He told The New York Times on Saturday that “many friends” had asked him to pardon Hernández, and if his conviction stood, “you could do this to any president.” Hernández was “the leader of one of the largest criminal enterprises that has ever been subject to a conviction in U.S. courts,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said Sunday, and Trump’s “shocking” pardon suggests he “cares nothing about narcotrafficking.”
What next?
Honduras’ National Electoral Council was expected to announce an election winner today. Trump did not say when he would pardon Hernández.
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