32 Facts About Xiomara Castro

Xiomara Castro is the country's first female president, and served as first lady during the presidency of her husband Manuel Zelaya.

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

Xiomara Castro became involved in the National Popular Resistance Front after her husband's refusal to comply with a Supreme Court order led to the 2009 Honduran coup d'etat, forcing him into exile.

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

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

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

Xiomara Castro was born on 30 September 1959 in Santa Barbara, Honduras.

Xiomara 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.

Xiomara Castro took part in the creation of the Centro de Cuidado Diurno para Ninos en 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.

In Catacamas, Xiomara 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.

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

Xiomara 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, Xiomara Castro officially launched her presidential campaign at an event in the department of Santa Barbara.

Xiomara Castro 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.

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

Xiomara Castro came in second behind Hernandez with 896,498 votes to Hernandez's 1,149,302.

Xiomara Castro 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.

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

Xiomara Castro has proposed a constituent assembly to rewrite the Constitution of Honduras.

Xiomara Castro has suggested easing the country's complete prohibition of abortion, under limited circumstances, and allow the use and distribution of emergency contraception.

Xiomara Castro became Honduras' first female president on 27 January 2022.

Xiomara Castro subsequently denounced the 20 deputies as "traitors" and expelled 18 from Libre.

Xiomara Castro was sworn in at the Tegucigalpa National Soccer Stadium, with thousands of individuals present.

Xiomara Castro is the first female President of Honduras and the first to not be a member of the National or Liberal parties since the restoration of democracy in 1982.

Xiomara Castro extradited her predecessor Juan Orlando Hernandez to the United States for his links to drug trafficking, rather than hand him over to the Honduran justice system; she cited Honduras state corruption as her motivation.

Xiomara Castro's government asked for UN help in setting up an international commission to fight corruption.

Xiomara Castro banned open-pit mining in March 2022 due to the extensive damage to the environment.

In May 2022, Xiomara Castro began a measure passed by Congress to abolish Honduras' special economic zones, which the previous National government implemented.

At her state visit to the People's Republic of China in Shanghai in June 2023, Xiomara Castro applied for Honduran membership in the New Development Bank, called BRICS Development Bank, as this would boost the economic development and raise living standards in her country.

In-addition, Xiomara Castro stated that she had ordered her Minister of Finance and the Central Bank to take action to reduce interest rates for production.

On 14 March 2023, Xiomara Castro instructed her foreign minister to move to cut ties with Taiwan in order to establish formal relations with the People's Republic of China as the sole Chinese state.

Xiomara Castro announced the recall of the Honduran ambassador from Israel on 4 November 2023, shortly after the country's ministry of foreign affairs stated that "Honduras energetically condemns the genocide and serious violations of international humanitarian law that the civilian Palestinian population is suffering in the Gaza Strip".