A view shows cars standing in traffic in San Pedro Sula, Honduras March 1, 2025. Photo: Yoseph Amaya/Reuters/file photo.
By Ricardo Salgado – Nov 17, 2025
A couple of weeks ago, the Public Prosecutor of Honduras made public 26 audio recordings which, together, reveal a plot to ruin the country’s November 30 elections. A female voice, that sounds like the National Electoral Council member for the far-right National Party, narrates in great detail how they would provoke incidents on election day, in a repeat of what they had already done during the primaries this past March 9th (they obstructed the delivery of 300 ballot boxes and tried to make it appear that the entire process was a fiasco).
According to the leaked audios, the Electoral Council members for the (now neofascist) Liberal Party would declare the candidate of the Miami mafia, Salvador Nasralla, the winner. Once you connect the dots, you see that the idea is to cause a confrontation that would lead to declaring the elections “null and void,” with the support of international organizations (OAS and European Union).
The audio files explicitly refer to support the opposition is receiving from the US embassy in Tegucigalpa. The leaked audios, in and of themselves, should raise the ire of society, as they are proof of their true disdain for the bourgeois democracy they claim to defend.
But the media, acting in lockstep, are whitewashing the incident by turning it into a debate over the authenticity of the leaked recordings. They are parading around the alleged speaker in the audios, going so far as to put her in a reality show in which they joke that she is “tampering with ballot boxes,” while they make light of the legal construct the right-wing has created to defend the interests of the ruling class and make sure their crimes remain unpunished.
Although the President of the Republic herself denounced this crime during the environmental summit in Belém, Brazil, the media stuck with their plan to raise the profile of the speaker on the leaked recordings to that of the heroine. For her part, the aforementioned official proceeded to file complaints against numerous political figures, all in an attempt to thicken the fog in which the elites have been shrouding her.
With the election just two weeks away, the conspiracy revealed in the recordings has not been treated with anything remotely resembling seriousness in any media outlets. It is hard to imagine that the results of any investigation will see the light of day before the plan is consummated. And it is interesting to note that many of the details revealed in that singular confession are unfolding with virtual pinpoint accuracy.
In fact, the international organizations have been boosting the plan by issuing various communiqués, blaming the events on the government, the Libre party, and its candidate. Thus far, as I write these lines, none of those agencies has requested a serious and swift investigation of the content of the audio files.
These organizations are aligning themselves with statements made by members of Congress, senators, and other officials in the US government. Added to this are opinion articles in the Wall Street Journal, alleging that Venezuela is “teaching” the governing party how to “steal” an election.
As we make our way to the homestretch, there are three conditions that indicate the path to follow in this situation:
The Libre party candidate, with a comfortable lead in the polls, is the only one who has campaigned on the ground. The candidate for the National Party of Juan Orlando Hernández has a structure that allows him to have some social base of support. But the candidate for the Liberal Party of Honduras has nothing but the illusion of a base, inflated by traditional and social media, with zero capacity on the ground. Nasralla is a (mis)creation of the gringos, because of distrust of the disgraced party that led Honduras to be run by organized crime.
The combined far-right and neofascists seek to steal the elections at all costs, with the ultimate goal of destroying the Libre party and erasing all vestiges of a left in Honduras, and erasing the image of former President José Manuel Zelaya from the collective imagination. For them it is an existential crisis that has nothing to do with democracy.
As is to be expected, the Libre party will defend these elections with everything it has. In this regard, its candidate, Rixi Moncada, has been very clear in her latest public appearances. She has used her skills as a teacher to give instructions about what every member of the movement should do from the time the polling stations open until all the votes have been counted in all three contests.
Understanding what is happening in Honduras requires one to understand that Libre’s rivals are tools of a well-resourced economic machine that coordinates at the international level. At this stage of the game, the right has no chance to win at the ballot box, so they will stick with the plan revealed in the leaked audio files, and who knows what will happen.
Meanwhile, the country remains calm, with overwhelming joy among the ranks of the Libre party, while their rivals predict disturbances on election day. Perhaps that is because they know exactly where and when this will happen.
While the media shamefully bury the story of these extremely serious accusations, the people’s response is crystal clear: they may try to drag Honduras into a catastrophe, but the people are intent on stopping it.
Ricardo Salgado is the Secretary of Strategic Planning of Honduras
Translation: Jill Clark-Gollub
RS/JCG/OT
