"In Honduras’ presidential election on Nov. 28, Xiomara Castro and her allies among the country’s political opposition ousted the ruling National Party, which has spent the past decade using corruption, violence and vote-buying to entrench itself in power. For Castro’s coalition, just making it to election day meant facing down targeted assassinations, engineering a fragile consensus among opposition factions to back her candidacy and convincing disillusioned voters that turning out was worth it, even if the elections might be rigged. But in retrospect, winning the election might have been the easy part for Castro and the opposition—at least compared to what comes next. Castro has promised to rebuild democracy and the rule of law and to fight corruption, but after 12 years of National Party rule, she inherits a thoroughly gutted state. Outgoing President Juan Orlando Hernandez, in power since 2014, repurposed the courts and electoral council to tilt the playing field against opponents. The feared Military Police harassed government critics and killed dozens of opposition protesters. And according to testimony from the drug-trafficking trial of HHernandez’s brother—now serving a life sentence in U.S. federal prison—cartels penetrated all levels of public office. As Castro’s swearing-in ceremony on Jan. 27 approaches, the new president faces a daunting question: How do you rebuild democratic institutions in a mafia state?"