Factbox-Who are the leading candidates in Honduras’ presidential election?

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By Diego Oré

(Reuters) -Most opinion polls show a statistical tie among three of the five contenders to succeed President Xiomara Castro in Sunday’s Honduras election: ruling party candidate Rixi Moncada, former Tegucigalpa Mayor Nasry Asfura of the National Party and TV host Salvador Nasralla of the Liberal Party. 

Here are their profiles:

RIXI MONCADA

A 60-year-old teacher and lawyer, Moncada is seeking the presidency for the Liberty and Refoundation (LIBRE) party, which has governed the country since 2022.

Moncada has held various positions in the public and private sectors: She has been a judge, magistrate, adviser to the Attorney General’s office and professor and, since 2006, has led several ministries, including Labor and Social Security, Finance and Defense.

She was born on February 13, 1965, in the small mountain municipality of Talanga, about 52 kilometers (32 miles) north of the capital Tegucigalpa. She left for the capital to further her education, graduating at the age of 17.

She began her political career as an adviser in Congress. In 2006, the leftist president Manuel Zelaya (2006-2009) appointed her secretary of labor. After a coup against Zelaya in mid-2009, Moncada remained loyal and was one of the founders of a group demanding Zelaya’s return to power, which would become the LIBRE party in 2012.

In 2009, she faced corruption charges over alleged overpricing in a building lease for state power company ENEE, which she led at the time. The case was dismissed in 2010. Critics also accuse her of nepotism for placing relatives in government jobs, an allegation she denies, saying they are “hardworking people earning minimum wages.”

Moncada has proposed “democratizing the economy” by expanding credit, strengthening national production and building an economic model that generates “real opportunities for everyone.” She has also proposed changes to the Constitution to underpin a judicial overhaul.

“Our fight against corruption is head-on and without fear. To reform the justice system, there is only one way: to have a majority in Congress,” Moncada said during the campaign.  

NASRY ASFURA

A 67-year-old politician and businessman, Asfura is running for the presidency for the second consecutive time as the standard-bearer of the National Party, aligned with the conservative right and whose last president, Juan Orlando Hernández (2014-2022), is serving a sentence in the United States on drug trafficking charges.

U.S. President Donald Trump has thrown his support behind Asfura, calling him in a Truth Social post the “only real friend of Freedom in Honduras” and urging people to vote for him. 

Asfura was born in Tegucigalpa on June 8, 1958, into a family of Palestinian descent. He studied civil engineering but did not complete his degree. In the 1990s, he entered public life during the administration of Nora Gúnera, former first lady and the first female mayor of Tegucigalpa from 1990 to 1994.

As an efficient but low-profile official, he was part of subsequent city administrations, and was also a congressman and minister for social investment.

In the 2013 general elections, Asfura became mayor of the Central District, which includes Tegucigalpa and Comayagüela. His administration was characterized by the construction of road infrastructure projects, which won him reelection in 2017. During that time, he earned the nickname “Papi, at your service” for his public works.

Despite projecting a modest and hardworking image, always dressed in jeans and rolled-up sleeves, he is under investigation, along with other former officials from his administration in the capital, for allegedly being part of a scheme to embezzle public funds and launder money. The candidate has stated that the actions against him are politically motivated and denies wrongdoing.

“Extremes don’t work,” he said during the campaign when asked if he represents the far-right. “We must seek a balance (…) People don’t care if you’re ugly or beautiful, left or right, green, red or blue; what they want are solutions.” 

He has said private investment is necessary to move the country forward, and his political agenda is focused on jobs, education and security.

SALVADOR NASRALLA

The 72-year-old television presenter is running for the Liberal Party, a centrist movement that governed the country, in turn with the National Party, from the late 19th century until 2022. He is running on a broad call to restore the rule of law and battle corruption. 

After a career spanning more than 40 years in television and as an event host, Nasralla ran for president in 2013 for a party he co-founded, finishing fourth. He tried again in 2017, with a coalition of different parties, but lost again, this time coming second in a fiercely disputed election marred by accusations of fraud. In 2022, he became Castro’s vice president, a position from which he resigned in 2024 to make a third run for president – this time with the Liberal Party.

He was born in Tegucigalpa on January 30, 1953, to a Honduran father and a Chilean mother of Lebanese descent. During his adolescence, he worked in radio journalism. He then went to live with relatives in Chile, where he studied Industrial Civil Engineering and earned a master’s degree in Business Administration. Upon returning to Honduras, he became the country’s general manager of PepsiCo and a university professor.

In 1981, he began his television career covering sports. A decade later, he launched “X-0 Gives Money,” a highly popular cash-prize game show.

“My home is the Liberal Party,” Nasralla said upon being sworn in as a member of the party in July 2024, after a public apology a few weeks earlier to Liberals he might have offended in the past. 

(Reporting by Diego Oré in Mexico City and Laura García in Tegucigalpa; Editing by Ana Isabel Martínez and Howard Goller)