Cuba Praises Xiomara Castro’s Resounding Victory In Honduras

On Monday, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel congratulated the Liberty and Refoundation (LIBRE) candidate Xiomara Castro for her resounding victory in the Presidential elections held on Sunday.

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"Congratulations to President-elect Xiomara Castro. Latin America and the Caribbean also celebrate with Honduras," Diaz-Canel said and recalled Castro's husband, former President Manuel Zelaya, who was deposed by a coup d'etat backed by President Barack Obama's administration in 2009.

Through its first electoral report, the National Electoral Council (CNE) acknowledged that the Leftist politician surpasses with at least 20 percentage points the National Party candidate Nasry Asfura, who represented the Honduran right-wing elites.

Until 07:00 hours on Monday, Honduran electoral authorities had counted 51.45 percent of the votes in the presidential elections. While Castro had achieved 53.61 percent of the votes, Asfura had reached only 33.87 percent of the preferences, which generated a difference between the two candidates that had never been seen in the electoral political history of Honduras.

On June 28, 2009, the U.S. deployed its first 21st century's "soft coup d'état" in Latin America. Its victim was Castro's husband, a leftist president who had previously promoted reforms to foster development and reduce poverty in his country. On that day, the Honduran Armed Forces arrested Manuel Zelaya and illegally transferred him to Costa Rica.

“It was initially reported that Zelaya had resigned by letter, an assertion that he denied from Costa Rica to immediately call for civil disobedience. Later, Congress unanimously resolved his dismissal, considering that his government’s actions had violated the Constitution and the legal system of the country,” outlet Then24 recalled.

"It took 12 years after the coup against Zelaya for the Honduran people to achieve a resounding victory at the polls," the Cuban President commented.