Honduras has first female leader
Honduras’s former first lady Xiomara Castro has been sworn in as the country’s first woman president amid a political rebellion in her leftist Libre party that challenged her authority even before her term began.
In elections last November, Ms Castro and Libre unseated the right-wing National Party (PN) after 12 years in power.
“A woman is needed... to manage the funds with transparency,” she had said on the campaign trail, alluding to accusations of corruption and links to drug trafficking hanging over her predecessor, the PN’s Juan Orlando Hernandez.
Ms Castro, trained in business administration, never set out to be a politician but was forced into the public eye by the 2009 coup backed by Honduras’s military, business elites and the political right.
Her popularity stems in large part from her defence of the poor – - even before joining politics she was involved in charity organisations.
But in a deeply conservative and macho country, she faces the twin difficulties of opponents branding her a communist or a puppet of her husband Manuel Zelaya.
“The shadow of Zelaya weighs heavily on her, and in Honduran society some people can assume that Zelaya is the power behind the throne,” sociologist Eugenio Sosa said.