Eighteen dissident deputies from Castro’s party, Libertad y Refundación (Libre), with the support of right-wing formations, elected Jorge Calix as president of Congress in a social center.
In parallel, Free parliamentarians loyal to Castro appointed the deputy of the Salvador Party of Honduras (PSH), louis round, in the Congress building.
Cálix, accused of being a “traitor” by Castro, nonetheless promised to work for the program of the president-elect, who is to take over the government next Thursday. “Our legislative agenda has as a priority to make Xiomara Castro’s government plan a reality,” he assured.
Cálix obtained the support of 79 legislators, including 44 votes from National Party (PN, right), from the outgoing government, to preside over Parliament.
Xiomara Castro had reached an agreement with the Salvador Party of Honduras (PSH) to vote for Luis Redondo, from that formation, as head of Congress, who was voted in the legislative seat with 96, including alternates.
65 votes are required to achieve the leadership of Congress, half plus one of the 128 seats.
The crisis broke out on Friday in a session amid blows and shouts, when Cálix was sworn in as provisional president, in disobedience to the pact between Libre and the PSH.
Of the 20 deputies, 18 were expelled from Libre because two later publicly recanted.
“I recognize the presidency of Congress headed by deputy Luis Redondo, I invite him to my swearing-in with the people on January 27,” Xiomara Castro wrote on Twitter.
“I congratulate the deputies who reject 12 years of PN corruption networks (the current president John Orlando Hernandez),” added the president-elect.
Castro accuses the dissidents of his party of allying with the PN to prevent him from carrying out the transformations he promised to carry out in Honduras during the presidential campaign.
“A crisis of high dimensions is coming, it is in danger that Xiomara Castro will not even take office,” Eugenio Sosa, analyst and professor of Sociology at the National University, told AFP.
“Too there is danger of a new coup“, he warned.
However, in his first speech, Cálix was forceful: “As long as I hold the presidency of the first power of the State, there will be no coup against the elected president.”
Regarding the legality of Cálix’s appointment, Sosa considered that the vote of dissidents outside Congress had more regular deputies, which gives it “legality.”
But “Xiomara is not going to give in. She is going to recognize Redondo, she is going to order the decrees approved by Redondo to be published in La Gaceta. The Executive is the one who orders them to be published in La Gaceta,” he explained.
Castro won the elections on November 28 by an overwhelming majority, thanks to an alliance with the PSH, in exchange for nominating their presidential candidate, Salvador Nasralla, as vice president.
The Congress was made up of 50 deputies from Libre, 44 from the PN (of current president Juan Orlando Hernández), 22 from the Liberal Party (PL, right), 10 from the PSH and two from other parties.
Source From: Ambito
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