TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) — At a time when Honduras President Juan Orlando Hernández’s name keeps popping up in the New York trial of an alleged drug trafficker, one of the candidates running to replace Hernández in Sunday’s primary elections was convicted in the same court of laundering money for the same cartel. The alleged connection shows just how much work is needed in Honduras, a country that U.S. prosecutors have repeatedly suggested essentially functions as a narco-state where drug traffickers buy protection from politicians. Hondurans could begin to chart a new course at the ballot box.
