Central America
Honduras lawmaker crisis heads to court
AFP
The crisis in Honduras’s Congress — where rival factions of new President Xiomara Castro’s left-wing Libre party have elected separate leaders — headed to the country’s Supreme Court on Friday, with both sides asking justices to settle the dispute.
Castro ally Luis Redondo, who belongs to Libre’s coalition partner Savior Party of Honduras (PSH), and Jorge Calix, who represents Libre’s rebel faction and has opposition backing, each claim to be the rightful leader of Congress.
The crisis, which initially saw lawmakers come to blows, erupted last week when a group of Libre dissidents ignored an agreement with the PSH, whose support was key to Castro winning the November elections and which had been promised the Congress leadership post.
The Libre dissidents argued that Congress should be led by the party with the most members — Libre has 50 deputies compared to just 10 for the PSH.
The ruckus was an embarrassing distraction for Castro, who was sworn in Thursday as the Central American nation’s first woman president.
Control of the legislature is key to Castro’s anti-corruption and political reform platform in a country battered by poverty, migration and drug trafficking.
Redondo was operating out of the official seat of Congress, while Calix was operating virtually.
Calix has been joined by more than 70 of the body’s 128 deputies while only around 40 were in the Congress building, but the Redondo faction achieved a quorum as substitute lawmakers stood in for those that were absent.
Castro offered Calix a position in her government team, but he has not so far responded.
“I believe in dialogue to find a political solution to this conflict. However, I respect the right of those who oppose us to go” to the Supreme Court, Calix said on Twitter Friday. “Let’s talk.”
On Thursday, both sides went separately before the Supreme Court’s constitutional chamber to ask for a ruling on the situation.
The lawyer representing Calix, Jose Rodriguez, has filed a writ of amparo, which can be invoked when someone believes their constitutional rights are being violated.
The attorney told AFP that if successful, his motion would strip Redondo of his functions and install Calix as the rightful leader of Congress while the situation plays out.
Earlier, lawmaker Jose Lagos, leader of a minority party, went to the court to file a motion against Calix for “violating the constitutional rights of millions of Hondurans.”
Rodriguez said the court must respond within a week.
Four of the five judges in the court’s constitutional chamber were named to their posts by the previous Congress, which was dominated by the right-wing National Party of former president Juan Orlando Hernandez, which is now aligned with Calix.
On Friday, the Congress building was closed, with workers prevented from entering.
Central America
Costa Rica faces historic vote on lifting presidential immunity for Rodrigo Chaves
Costa Rica, a country internationally recognized for its democratic and political stability, is heading toward an unprecedented decision: whether to lift President Rodrigo Chaves’s immunity so he can face a criminal trial over alleged irregular management of funds from the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI).
On Wednesday, the Legislative Assembly formed a commission of three lawmakers to analyze the accusation against the president, which was forwarded earlier this month by the Supreme Court of Justice. The commission has 20 days, extendable for another 20, to issue a report so that the full Assembly can vote on whether to lift the president’s immunity.
Lifting the immunity would require 38 votes — two-thirds of the legislature — which is largely composed of opposition parties.
If immunity is removed, prosecutors would be able to continue their investigation and potentially question the president. If the motion fails, the case would return to the judiciary and remain pending until Chaves’s term ends in May 2026.
Since the country’s last civil war in 1948 and the abolition of the army later that year, Costa Rica has held uninterrupted elections, every president has completed their term without major issues, and none has ever had their immunity lifted — although several have faced judicial proceedings.
Central America
Honduras sees ongoing killings of land defenders and attacks on press, warns NGO
The Association for Participatory Citizenship (ACI PARTICIPA) denounced on Thursday that killings of land defenders and attacks aimed at silencing the press continue in Honduras.
“We continue to see murders of defenders of land and territory, as well as aggressions to silence the press. In 2024, there were 490 attacks and aggressions that constitute human rights violations,” said ACI PARTICIPA’s executive director, Hedme Castro, during the presentation of the 2024 Report on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders in Honduras.
Castro noted that the aggressions range “from attempts on lives, threats, harassment, intimidation, and smear campaigns, which have become very frequent, to obstruction of work, surveillance, and criminalization.”
She highlighted that, although only seven defenders were killed in 2024 compared to 24 in 2023, “last year we saw a significantly high number of women murdered, and cases of missing children.”
Moreover, Castro criticized the authorities for failing to address the violence. “There is no response from the authorities to reduce the violence in the country; in fact, I believe that the ‘fathers of the nation’ (members of Parliament) are not setting the right example, and the situation in the Legislative branch is actually fueling violence,” she added, referring to frequent violent incidents in Congress.
The ACI PARTICIPA report also notes that the government led by President Xiomara Castro has made “an important effort over the past two years to improve citizens’ access to basic rights, helping to cushion the effects of economic deterioration, although a decent standard of living has yet to be achieved for the majority of Hondurans.”
Central America
Daniel Ortega’s last historic sandinista ally detained in Managua
Former Sandinista revolutionary commander and presidential economic adviser Bayardo Arce Castaño was arrested on Thursday in Managua for alleged irregular transactions involving state-owned assets, according to local media reports.
The arrest was carried out by agents from the Special Operations Directorate of the Police, who raided his residence in the southern part of the Nicaraguan capital. The Attorney General’s Office (PGR) is investigating Arce for “transactions and/or negotiations” that, according to authorities, do not comply with current legal standards.
Arce, 76, was one of the nine historic commanders of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) who led the overthrow of dictator Anastasio Somoza in 1979. Since 2007, he had served as the economic adviser to dictator Daniel Ortega, and was the last of the historic commanders still aligned with the regime.
The Attorney General’s Office accused Arce of contempt after he refused to appear for questioning about properties registered in his name. Authorities allege that Ricardo Bonilla, Arce’s assistant, was also involved in questionable financial dealings and was jailed after failing to comply with a summons.
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