VOTERS in Honduras went to the polls today to select candidates from the three main parties to compete in November’s presidential election.

The election comes at a time when President Xiomara Castro, Honduras’s first female leader, of the leftist Libre party has a tense relationship with the United States.

Sunday’s election will offer voters choices of continuation in the form of Ms Castro’s defence minister, Rixi Moncada, who has the president's support.

Former first lady Ana Garcia offers the possibility of a return to the recent past as she seeks the nomination of the National Party of Honduras.

The conservative Liberal Party of Honduras features a face-off between two people who once supported Castro, but became opponents: Salvador Nasralla and Jorge Calix.

Mr Nasralla helped Ms Castro win the presidency in the 2021 election by ending his independent candidacy to join her coalition. He served as vice-president before leaving the administration, saying he had been marginalised.

Mr Nasralla has expressed admiration for Argentina’s neoliberal zealot, Javier Milei, while Ms Calix says he wants to emulate popular El Salvador President Nayib Bukele’s brutal security policies.

Mr Calix, a young lawyer and politician, was once a member of Libre, but left after Ms Castro failed to support his bid to lead Congress.

Ms Castro had raised the possibility of ending US access to an air base it uses for “regional operations” and said that she would withdraw from the extradition treaty that sent her predecessor to the US on drug trafficking charges, before eventually backtracking.