General Elections, 28 November 2021

Hurricane Iota, November 2020 

Hurricane Iota, a Category Four hurricane, hit Honduras two weeks after Hurricane Eta. Together they affected over 4.5 million people, killed 99, and caused immense damage throughout the country. Water reached rooftops in Sula Valley and the west of the country saw water levels in the Ulúa River a metre above previous record levels. Damage was estimated at USD 1.9 billion by the World Bank Group (World Bank 2021). The Covid-19 pandemic was ongoing alongside the hurricanes; both disasters led rates of poverty to rise from 40.1 per cent in 2019 to 54 per cent in 2021 (Birch and Martínez i Coma 2023). 

Impact on the electoral process 

Honduras held their general election about one year after Hurricanes Eta and Iota had struck. Honduras is used to natural hazards, and research has shown that disaster relief efforts are used for clientelist purposes – politicians mobilize resources to gain more votes (Birch and Martínez i Coma 2023). At the time of the 2021 polls, many voters still lived in conditions made dangerous by the hurricanes, which caused immigration towards the northern parts of Honduras (Grant 2021). The European Union Election Observation Mission noted that political polarization in Honduras rose as a consequence of the pandemic and the hurricanes’ effects on socio-economic conditions (EU 2021).  

Voter turnout ended was 69.09 per cent, an increase compared to the 2017 general elections which saw a turnout of 57.52 per cent (International IDEA n.d.).