Honduras' presidential frontrunner vows to re-nationalize infra assets

Xiomara Castro, who leads the vote count in Honduras’ presidential election by a wide margin, has promised to re-nationalize privatized assets and review concession contracts.

Her current government program remains vague and doesn’t include major projects, however.

But her promise to rebuild democracy could help unlock public investments for stalled and new projects and even create legal certainty to attract private investments.

While Castro, running for the Libertad y Refundación (Libre) party, has claimed victory, her rival Nasry Asfura, from the conservative Partido Nacional, has not yet conceded.

“Honduras’ electoral authorities have counted about half the votes, demonstrating a 20 point lead for Xiomara Castro over Nasry Asfura. Now the vote counting has stalled,” James Bosworth, author of the Latin America Risk Report blog, wrote Tuesday.

Castro is the wife of former president Manuel Zelaya, who served from January 2006 until June 2009, when he was ousted in a military coup. Her success is to a large extent the result of corruption, social crises and crime scandals that rocked the country during the 12 years Partido Nacional has been in power.

INFRA PROPOSALS

On infrastructure concessions, Castro said, “no more monopolies, nor oligopolies, nor tax exemptions or exemptions that constitute unnecessary development privileges.”

According to her government plan “the state in my government, upon payment, will regain control and ownership over airports, ports, highways, and other privatized public services.”

But the plan also mentions several times the importance of the private sector in different areas, suggesting PPPs remain a viable mechanism.

On industrial development proposals, her administration will seek to “agree with the private sector and civil organizations a set of structural reforms to promote foreign direct investment outside concessions.”

Most public investment proposals highlight the electricity and telecom sectors, housing and highways as key recipients. 

Also read: At a glance: Honduran presidential frontrunner’s energy roadmap

Also read: The ICT challenges of Honduras' new government

Castro is proposing programs, goals, a reform and a new ministry to solve the country’s 65% housing gap, but investment figures or construction goals were not mentioned. 

Her highway plan focuses on rehabilitation and maintenance and includes drafting a national plan. She also proposes launching new projects, but none are mentioned specifically. 

According to the plan, a Castro administration would ”eliminate the collection of tolls from the eventual passenger, maintaining the roads with the income from taxes that already exist for this purpose and special ones contributed by private commercial heavy transport.”