Xiomara Castro officially declared president of Honduras

The National Electoral Council (CNE) officially declared Xiomara Castro the winner of the Honduran presidential elections on Monday, 22 days after the highly contested general elections were held across the Central American country.

The government entity in charge of managing national elections confirmed that Castro will be the first woman elected to the office of the president after winning 1,716,793 votes, amounting to 51.12 percent of the total votes cast – besting Nasry Asfura of the National Party who received 36.93 percent of the vote.

The CNE reported that it will announce the results of various legislative races on Dec. 28, confirming the victories of 128 members of congress and 298 mayors.

Castro’s victory was of particular interest to the U.S., as stability in the so-called “Northern Triangle” is a top priority for the Biden administration, which has repeatedly discussed the need to address the “root causes of migration” and ultimately committed $4 billion to that end.

To date, more than 500,000 Hondurans have headed to the U.S. since Honduras’ contested 2017 election.

Tensions have existed recently between Tegucigalpa and Washington and it was just a few short years ago that Castro and her husband cozied up to the former Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chávez.

But analysts believe Castro and the U.S. could find room for cooperation in immigration, drug trafficking and corruption.

“In the first 100 days, we will execute and propose to the administration of President Joe Biden and Kamala Harris a plan to combat and address the true causes of migration,” Castro said.