Tegucigalpa.- Uncertainty over the delay in the results of the November 30 elections in Honduras has severely impacted small and medium-sized entrepreneurs, with sales falling by up to 85%, according to the guilds.
The prolonged political crisis generates fear, slows consumption and suffocates the sector in the middle of the Christmas season.
«It’s affecting us quite a bit because there are people who are afraid to go out because they say ‘we go to any fair (market) to buy and then they start making a fuss’» (demonstrations, sometimes violent, some in front of the collection center for all the electoral material), said Libni Castejón, who is dedicated to the sale of fruits and vegetables in a popular market in the Honduran capital.
“Every day we are worse, there are people who say there was fraud, but there are also people who don’t understand that no one loves the people who are puffed up, and Salvador (Nasralla, candidate of the conservative Liberal Party) only knows how to say fraud. We, the truth, don’t know, but the Honduran is angry for despising the poor people for what he does,” he added.
Fear Before and After the Elections
Castejón, who buys to sell some of the products he offers to his clients and others he cultivates in Tatumbla, a small town near Tegucigalpa, pointed out that this year, on the occasion of the Christmas holidays, they did not expect “such low sales”.
The situation is also not good for Tony Mena, who in the same market, located in front of the National Stadium José de la Paz Herrera, sells beef and pork, which is what Hondurans consume the most at Christmas and New Year’s Eve.
Mena expressed that there has been “fear” among his clients, due to the atmosphere of violence that many Hondurans anticipated for election day, which caused many to stock up on all the food they could before November 30.
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“Thank God, events did not happen as some people expected. Now we have been going on for almost a month and we are still in a situation of uncertainty,” he emphasized.
The situation is different for Edwin Rivas, a seller of fruits and plantain leaves for wrapping the traditional tamales, who told EFE that the electoral crisis has not affected him “at all” and that his sales are “normal, just like in other years.”
The Special Scrutiny
According to the preliminary results of the
National Electoral Council (CNE), the candidate of the conservative National Party, Nasry ‘Tito’ Asfura, who is supported by the President of the United States, Donald Trump, leads the results with 1,464,827 votes (40.29%), followed by Salvador Nasralla, with 1,436,888 votes (39.52%).
The candidate of the ruling Liberty and Refoundation Party (Libre, left), Rixi Moncada, remains in third place with 697,814 marks (19.19%), with 99.92% of the scrutinized ballots counted.
The CNE has until December 30 to announce the results.
“Chaotic” and “desperate” Situation
For the president of the Micro and Small Business Guild,
Victorino Carranza, this is a «chaotic» and «desperate» situation for micro and small businesses in Honduras.
According to the business leader, the prolonged political uncertainty has caused a drop in sales of “up to 85%”, a collapse that keeps the sector “drowning”, without liquidity and with serious difficulties in sustaining productive activity.
“There is no work, there is no money. Sales have fallen like never before,” Carranza underlined, and urged the CNE to act with speed, transparency and adherence to the law to conclude the electoral process, and the political forces to act with “responsibility” to avoid further deterioration of the economy and social stability.
“Politicians must sit down and use dialogue to achieve peaceful and harmonious coexistence, so that we all win,” Carranza emphasized, insisting that micro and small businesses, which generate around two million jobs and constitute one of the main engines of the national economy, need stability, clear rules, and an environment of trust.
