Spectacular loss by Honduras' governing party spurs reflection and criticism

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) — For over 30 years, Javier Gámez and María Barahona worked, scrimped and studied to push their family ahead. Gámez filled bags with sand from the Choluteca River winding through the Honduran capital and shined shoes in a downtown park; Barahona sold bananas and oranges from a basket.

They continued their education, becoming accountants and raising three children who are now adults on professional tracks. Working-class families like theirs formed the base of the governing Liberty and Refoundation Party, or LIBRE, a movement built on Honduras’ political left in the wake of the 2009 coup that removed President Manuel “Mel” Zelaya from power.

Hondurans with limited resources launched their movement into political contention, marching, organizing, making themselves heard, because they believed LIBRE would in turn look out for them. And in 2021, it paid off when Xiomara Castro, Zelaya’s wife, won the presidency with more than 50% of the vote.

Four years later, the party is riven with infighting and trying to come to grips with the spectacular loss of its presidential candidate Rixi Moncada, who received less than 20% of the vote in the Nov. 30 election. In another tumultuous election without a clear winner nearly two weeks later, one thing is certain: LIBRE lost badly, punished in part by its own base.

Moncada and others blame U.S. President Donald Trump’s last-minute meddling with his endorsement of conservative Nasry Asfura of the National Party and the pardoning of ex-President Juan Orlando Hernández. But even Zelaya came out late Tuesday to say the party’s own data showed candidate Salvador Nasralla from the conservative Liberal Party won. Officially Asfura leads Nasralla by a percentage point.

One evening as votes were still being counted, Gámez, a LIBRE poll worker, and Barahona, a LIBRE neighborhood coordinator, both 49, sat on a park bench in Tegucigalpa dissecting the loss of the party they still supported this election, but with less enthusiasm.

The couple and others said there were signs of trouble from the earliest days. They said working-class families did not get the help they expected and Castro's administration took on some of the worst characteristics of its predecessors. She had promised transparency and failed to deliver on priorities like fighting corruption and pushing drug traffickers out of politics.

“They dedicated themselves to only favoring their families, people close to them, and they forgot about the people who put them there,” Gámez said.

One of the first thing’s Castro’s administration did upon taking power in 2022 was push a broad amnesty bill for people tied to her husband’s administration more than a decade earlier, citing political persecution. For someone who had made rooting out corruption central to her campaign, it stirred immediate unease.

Then the administration failed to establish an anticorruption mission with U.N. support as Castro had promised during the campaign.

In 2023, a Honduran government watchdog group published a report about the high level of nepotism in Castro’s administration. A month later, the group’s director said she had fled the country with her family after receiving threats.

In August 2024, Castro said she would end the extradition treaty with the United States after the U.S. ambassador questioned a visit of Honduran military officials to Venezuela. It was under that agreement that Castro's administration extradited Hernández, the former president from the National Party, to the United States to face drug trafficking charges. She reversed the decision on the treaty in February after talks with the Trump administration.

Last year, a video recorded in 2013 was released purportedly showing drug traffickers offering more than $525,000 to the president’s brother-in-law and congressional leader, Carlos Zelaya. Published as part of an investigation by InsightCrime, the video included Castro’s brother-in-law saying that half of the money would go to “the commander,” apparently meaning his brother Manuel Zelaya. Carlos Zelaya acknowledged meeting with the leader of a drug trafficking organization and resigned, but said he was unaware of his business.

“The basic promises they made, they failed to deliver on, but then while governing, they also reminded people of the past that they had voted in 2021 to leave behind,” said Rachel Schwartz, an expert on Central American politics at the University of Oklahoma.

The night after the election, a few hundred LIBRE supporters gathered at party headquarters to hear Moncada address the partial and preliminary results that already showed her in a distant third.

Standing across the street, Obed Godoy, who works in a government print shop, and Fanny Rodríguez chatted about the situation. Rodríguez was glued to her phone, occasionally reading aloud accusations of fraud as she saw them on social media.

They lamented Trump’s interference and Rodríguez decried the hypocrisy of a U.S. president who she said sees “all Latino immigrants as criminals,” but frees the ex-president Hernández convicted in the U.S. of drug trafficking.

Godoy said Castro had achievements, mentioning a government program subsidizing electricity that allowed what Castro’s administration said were some 900,000 poor families to pay nothing for electricity.

Still, asked if Castro’s legacy had helped or hindered Moncada, Rodríguez said she had helped “a little,” but cited the video of Castro’s brother-in-law discussing money with drug traffickers and a recent scandal at the Social Development Ministry over diverted funds to party politicians as being blemishes.

Across town in the capital’s El Manchen neighborhood, Karla Godoy, was carrying groceries home with her adult son.

A 16-year employee of the Agriculture Ministry and a LIBRE supporter, Godoy too said Castro’s administration had successes like building hospitals and giving cash grants to farmers. She blamed opposition media for not telling the public about the good things Castro’s administration did.

The 54-year-old acknowledged “some failures” by party leaders and chided other LIBRE supporters for throwing support to other parties this time over the fear-mongering of Trump and the Honduran opposition that Moncada would take Honduras down the path to authoritarianism like Venezuela, Cuba or Nicaragua.

Castro and Moncada were among the first prominent regional figures to publicly congratulate Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro on his claimed victory in an election he is widely believed to have lost in a landslide last year.

Godoy’s son Julio César Godoy, 31, was less generous with his countrymen. “The party lost because of one thing: for the idiosyncrasy that we Hondurans are idiots, we let ourselves believe that communism was coming,” he said.

Former LIBRE congresswoman María Luisa Borjas was similarly blunt, but about the party leadership.

The ex-police internal affairs commander said it was clear early on that Castro’s administration would falter, in part because they put “incompetent people” in various decision-making roles across the government. “That’s why they suffered a protest vote, because they never worried about people’s well-being,” she said.

Schwartz, of the University of Oklahoma, said the administration’s inability to execute some basic functions of government is part of the legacy of a political system rooted in clientelism, where posts are handed out in exchange for political support.

Barahona, seated beside Gámez, said she saw support from Castro’s administration in roads built and schools repaired, but recognized that the administration was not responsive to its base. Still, she said the size of the protest vote surprised her. “After making it to the top, we’re back at the bottom,” she said.

Gámez said, “We wanted a change for the country, but the people at the top betrayed us.”

Supporters of the party LIBRE, Liberty and Refoundation, protest the general election results in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)

Screens show the results of the ongoing vote count of Sunday's presidential election at a National Electoral Council facility in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, Thursday, Dec. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)

Supporters of the ruling party LIBRE, Liberty and Refoundation, cheer their presidential candidate Rixi Moncada, center top, at the party's headquarters in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, Sunday, Dec. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)

Flags of the ruling party LIBRE, Liberty and Refoundation, fly on a home's roof in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)

PHOENIX (AP) — This year's Final Four at the women's NCAA Tournament features a quartet of powerhouse programs, teams that have overwhelmed almost all of their opponents with superior talent and veteran coaching.

They have size. They are athletic. They have pedigree.

But they haven't faced a ton of on-court adversity — particularly in March.

That could change on Friday night when UConn faces South Carolina and Texas meets UCLA in the national semifinals at Mortgage Matchup Center. After beating up on inferior adversaries for the majority of March, it's time for the game's elite to pick on someone their own size.

Here's how they're preparing for potential clutch moments this weekend.

The Gamecocks have had a few tough losses this season, including two to Texas. They also dropped a road game against Oklahoma, blowing a seven-point halftime lead before losing in overtime.

South Carolina got its revenge last week, beating the Sooners in the Sweet 16.

The Gamecocks haven’t faced much friction in the NCAA Tournament, winning their four games by an average of 40.3 points.

Coach Dawn Staley said the way to stay fresh for late-game situations is to simulate them in practice so that players are comfortable when tense moments come. For instance, during last week’s regional in Sacramento, the coach said they made sure to go over sidelines inbounds plays since the benches were in a spot that was different than most of the games they had played.

Guard Raven Johnson said Staley did a good job of ramping up the intensity after the early-season setbacks, holding them to the program’s standard that has been built over the past two decades.

“When we took losses throughout the season, I think practices, they shifted,” Johnson said. “They were hard. She was on our butts. She was a different person.

“I think that made us come closer. That made us realize that people here, this is their first time ever experiencing things like this. We had to remind them that our standard here is very high. We had to remind them in practice, good habits are contagious. When you have good habits, they carry on into the game.”

The Huskies' dominance has been historic. They've won their 38 games by an average of 37.8 points, which is on track to rank third all-time behind its record 40.6 in 2015 and 39.7 in 2016.

On-court adversity hasn't been common. The Huskies played a tight game against Michigan early in the year, pulling out a 72-69 win on Nov. 21. They also trailed by one point against North Carolina after one quarter in the Sweet 16 before pulling away for a 63-42 victory.

Other than that, it's been pretty smooth sailing.

Azzi Fudd said she's confident the Huskies will be ready to execute in a tight fourth quarter if needed.

“You simulate as much as you can in practice, which the coaches have done for us all year long," Fudd said. “At the end of the day, the habits that we've built in practices and games will definitely help keep us settled, keep us calm, keep us together this weekend.”

Texas played a difficult schedule, going 14-3 against nationally ranked teams before March Madness even started. The Longhorns are the one team in the Final Four that has had a two-game losing streak, dropping back-to-back games to LSU and South Carolina in mid-January.

In that regard, they might be the most battle-tested team remaining.

Texas also might be the hottest team in the nation at the moment. The Longhorns are on a 12-game winning streak, which includes a 78-61 win over South Carolina in the SEC Tournament and a 77-41 win over Michigan in the Elite Eight.

Coach Vic Schaefer said he's not concerned about the lack of close games. He believes his team has proven its mettle thanks to the tough schedule.

“I've got a fifth-year point guard and I've got Madison Booker, who has been in those games and those wars,” Schaefer said. “I stopped worrying about this group about three or four weeks ago. What they've done and how they've done it — at some point you've got to step back and go ‘OK, they’re good.'”

Texas has won its games by an average of 29.1 points this season and by 35.5 in the tournament.

The Bruins are the only team remaining that has experienced a recent brush with a loss, trailing by eight points at halftime against Duke in the Elite Eight before rallying for a relatively comfortable 70-58 win.

Their lone loss came at the hands of their upcoming opponent — Texas.

Senior guard Gabriela Jaquez said the Duke game was a great learning moment heading into what she hopes are two more games.

“We never want to be down, but it's really important to respond quickly,” Jaquez said. “In the Duke game, we should have responded quicker, but it's OK, we responded at halftime. In the Final Four, all these teams are really good. They've worked hard all season, they're going to be ready, they're going to be prepared.”

UCLA has won its games by an average of 28 points this season, including 27 in the tournament.

AP Sports Writer Eric Olson contributed to this report.

AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-womens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness

UCLA center Lauren Betts passes the ball during practice prior to the national semifinals at the Women's Final Four of the NCAA college basketball tournament, Thursday, April 2, 2026, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

UConn head coach Geno Auriemma answers a question during a news conference prior to the national semifinals at the Women's Final Four of the NCAA college basketball tournament, Thursday, April 2, 2026, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

South Carolina's Raven Johnson answers a question during a new conference prior to the national semifinals at the Women's Final Four of the NCAA college basketball tournament, Thursday, April 2, 2026, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)