In Honduras’ presidential election on Nov. 28, Xiomara Castro and her allies among the country’s political opposition ousted the ruling National Party, which has spent the past decade using corruption, violence and vote-buying to entrench itself in power.
For Castro’s coalition, just making it to election day meant facing down targeted assassinations, engineering a fragile consensus among opposition factions to back her candidacy and convincing disillusioned voters that turning out was worth it, even if the elections might be rigged.
But in retrospect, winning the election might have been the easy part for Castro and the opposition—at least compared to what comes next.