Xiomara Castro

Iris Xiomara Castro Sarmiento (born 30 September 1959), also known as Xiomara Castro de Zelaya, is a Honduran politician and businesswoman who is the 56th president of Honduras, in office since January 2022.

She is the country's first female president, having earlier served as first lady during the presidency of her husband Manuel Zelaya.

Castro grew up in Tegucigalpa and studied business administration.

She married Manuel Zelaya in 1976 and became active in the women's section of the Liberal Party of Honduras.

In January 1976, Castro married Manuel Zelaya.

Immediately after the wedding, they made their home in Catacamas, Olancho.

Castro played an active part in the Association of Spouses of Members of the Rotary Club of Catacamas, as well as the activities developed within the group to take care of children in need in the Olancho department.

She took part in the creation of the Centro de Cuidado Diurno para Niños en Catacamas (Children's Daily Care Center in Catacamas), with the aim of offering assistance to single-parent families led by women, including through the creation of projects of basic cleaning, sowing of vegetables, and floriculture as important projects of job development.

She is the first president from outside the country's two-party system since democracy was restored in 1982.

The second of five children, Castro attended primary and secondary school in Tegucigalpa at the San José del Carmen Institute and the María Auxiliadora Institute.

In Catacamas, Castro organized the women's branch of the Liberal Party of Honduras and campaigned in support of her husband in the internal elections of February 2005, while she was in charge of sub-political coordination of Catacamas.

As First Lady of Honduras, she was in charge of social development programs, and she worked with the United Nations in coalition with other first ladies to address issues faced by women with HIV.

She became the country's first lady in 2006 following her husband's victory in the 2005 Honduran presidential election.

Castro became involved in the National Popular Resistance Front after the 2009 Honduran coup d'état, which resulted in the end of her husband's presidency.

Following the removal of her husband in the 28 June 2009 coup d'état, she led the movement resisting the coup d'état, repeatedly joining thousands of Hondurans in the streets calling for Zelaya's return.

This movement became known as the National Front of Popular Resistance (FNRP) and formed the basis for the political party Libre.

The Taiwanese embassy only offered Castro's pregnant daughter political protection on humanitarian grounds.

Lai Chien-Chung, the Taiwanese ambassador to Honduras, stating the refusal was to spread the risk and disputed the opposition's narrative of indifference.

She said her office reached out to Castro and sheltered her husband and two daughters.

Taiwanese KMT opposition member Tsai Cheng-Yuan claims that Taipei staff evicted the family and called in the military police to arrest them.

Castro joined her husband in the Brazilian embassy, where he had taken refuge before reaching a negotiation with the de facto regime.

On 1 July 2012, Castro officially launched her presidential campaign at an event in the department of Santa Barbara.

She then won her party's primary on 18 November 2012, and on 16 June 2013, she was officially chosen to represent Libre in the 2013 presidential election.

She expressed opposition to neoliberalism and the militarization of society, and she campaigned for a constituent assembly to write a new constitution.

Leading up to the election, she was first in the polls among all eight candidates during the months of March through October.

However, in the final poll before the election, she fell to second place, behind the President of the National Congress, Juan Orlando Hernández of the National Party of Honduras.

Castro and Hernández were widely seen as the two leading candidates going into the election.

She came in second behind Hernández with 896,498 votes (28.78%) to Hernández's 1,149,302 (36.89%).

This was the first time the Libre party outperformed either the National or the Liberal Party, as Libre won the second most seats in Congress.

She was nominated as the presidential candidate of the left-wing Liberty and Refoundation (LIBRE) party at the 2013 Honduran general election, finishing runner-up to National Party of Honduras candidate Juan Orlando Hernández and outpolling Liberal candidate Mauricio Villeda.

At the 2017 Honduran general election, she was Salvador Nasralla's running mate, with the ticket narrowly losing to Hernández amidst allegations of irregularities.

Castro was ultimately elected to the presidency in the 2021 Honduran general election, defeating National candidate Nasry Asfura with Nasralla as her running mate.

For the 2017 presidential election, Castro again sought to be Libre's nominee.

She easily won the primary, but when Libre formed an alliance with the Innovation and Unity Party, she agreed to step aside and let Salvador Nasralla lead the alliance's presidential ticket.

The Alliance won the election in the pre-election polls, and led in the preliminary results.

However, a general blackout interrupted the publication of the count for 36 hours; when it was restarted, the trend was reversed and President Juan Orlando Hernández was re-elected, leading to accusations of fraud.

The ensuing demonstrations were suppressed by the government, leaving 23 people dead, hundreds injured and more than 1,350 detained.

Castro was chosen as the 2021 presidential candidate for Libre and represented her political party in the 2021 Honduran general election.

Salvador Nasralla, a presidential candidate for the Savior Party, later dropped out and became Castro's running mate.

Polls showed a tight race between Castro and her right-wing opponent Nasry Asfura, of the incumbent National Party, a two-term mayor plagued by allegations of corruption.