The Diplomat
King Philip VI met yesterday with the Vice President of the United States, Kamala Harris, at the inauguration ceremony of the new President of Honduras, Xiomara Castro de Zelaya.
The King arrived in Honduras on Wednesday after visiting Puerto Rico on the occasion of the celebration of the fifth centenary of the founding of the city of San Juan. This is Mr Philip’s first visit to Honduras as King. In January 2014, when he was then Prince of Asturias, he attended the transfer of Presidential Command to Juan Orlando Hernandez and in 2012 he paid a working visit.
On his first day in Tegucigalpa, the King went to the José Cecilio del Valle Palace (Presidential House of Protocol) to hold a meeting with the outgoing President, Juan Orlando Hernández, attended by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, the Spanish Ambassador to Honduras, Guillermo Kirkpatrick, and the Director General for Ibero-America and the Caribbean, Xavier Martí. During this meeting, according to the Honduran Foreign Minister, Lisandro Rosales, Hernandez “thanked His Majesty the King for Spain’s support during these eight years of government, especially with the reconstruction of Eta and Iota, and the presence of Her Majesty Queen Letizia in 2020, who came to give a boost of help and encouragement to the Honduran people after the passage of these two storms”.
Later, the King held a meeting with Xiomara Castro in a building adjacent to the Presidential House, which was also attended by the Foreign Minister, the Spanish Ambassador and the Director General for Latin America and the Caribbean. “An honor to meet and talk with His Majesty King Philip VI of Spain, about cooperation and strengthening the relationship between our countries,” the new president said via Twitter. “We are already identifying opportunities for all Hondurans,” she added. The day ended with a meeting between the King and a representation of the Spanish community at the Spanish Embassy in Honduras.
Yesterday was marked by the inauguration of Xiomara Castro, 62 years old, the first woman in the political history of Honduras and who was elected in the general elections of last November 28 at the head of the Liberty and Refoundation Party (LIBRE). “I promise to be faithful to the Republic, to fulfill and enforce the Constitution and its laws”, Castro proclaimed before the nearly 30,000 people gathered in the National Stadium, who responded in unison with a “Yes we could!”. Shortly before, the new president had entered the stadium accompanied by her husband, ousted former president Manuel Zelaya.
Among the international guests at the inauguration were, in addition to Philip VI and Kamala Harris, the vice president of Argentina, Cristina Kirchner; the president of Costa Rica, Carlos Alvarado; the president of Panama, Laurentino Cortizo; the vice president of the Dominican Republic, Raquel Peña de Antuna; the Prime Minister of Belize, Jhonny Antonio Briceño; the Foreign Minister of Mexico, Marcelo Ebrad; the Foreign Minister of Venezuela, Félix Plascencia; the former Presidents of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva; the former President of Bolivia, Evo Morales; and the former Prime Minister of Spain, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. The president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, cancelled his appointment at the last minute.
This is the seventh participation of Philip VI in the inauguration of an Ibero-American president since he became King, since he was in 2018 in that of the Mexican Andrés Manuel López Obrador, in 2019 in that of the Panamanian Laurentino Cortizo, in 2020 in those of the Uruguayan Luis Lacalle Pou and the Bolivian Luis Arce and in 2021 in those of the Ecuadorian Guillermo Lasso Mendoza and the Peruvian Pedro Castillo.
First difficulties
Xiomara Castro’s debut as president has been, to say the least, a bumpy one. The new president does not have a majority in Parliament and this has been compounded by a serious political crisis within her own party. Last Tuesday, the Congress -elected in the same elections of November 28- opened its new legislative period with two parallel boards of directors: the one supported by Xiomara Castro, which was elected in the Chamber itself, and the one backed by several dissident deputies of her own party, which was ratified in a social club on the outskirts of Tegucigalpa to avoid clashes with the supporters of the new president.
The reason for these discrepancies is the opposition of twenty LIBRE deputies to the agreement between Xiorama Castro and the Salvador Party of Honduras (PSH), by which this party committed itself not to present any candidate to the Presidency if the vice-presidency was guaranteed to its leader, Salvador Nasralla, and the presidency of the Congress to Luis Redondo, of the PSH. As a sign of rejection, the rebel parliamentarians and the deputies of the right wing (National Party and Liberal Party) voted in favor of Jorge Cálix, who was ratified outside Tegucigalpa (amidst blows and insults) while the House elected Redondo. Castro has accused the dissidents of “treason” and expelled them from the party.
In an attempt to defuse the crisis, Castro yesterday offered Cálix the post of Cabinet Coordinator. For the moment he has not accepted. However, minutes before the inauguration, Jorge Cálix sent “a strong hug” to Castro through his Twitter account. “I am sure he will transform Honduras,” he added. Finally, Luis Redondo was in charge of placing the presidential sash on Xiomara Castro yesterday.
