Tegucigalpa, August 27 (RHC)-- Former Honduran President Manuel Zelaya said on Friday that his wife Xiomara Castro will run for the left-wing Libre Party in the 2017 presidential elections.

Xiomara Castro could face President Juan Orlando Hernandez of the conservative National Party, who has not yet confirmed whether he will run again, however he is expected to soon, especially after the Supreme Court struck down a law that banned presidents from seeking re-election -- a reform that the president pushed.

Zelaya, who was ousted in a 2009 U.S.-backed military coup based on unfounded accusations that he was trying to do away with term limits, said his wife’s candidacy will be registered on Saturday before the electoral court in the capital of Tegucigalpa.

This is the second time that Castro will run for the presidency. She did so in 2013, but lost to Hernandez in a controversial election that she and her supporters called “a fraud of incalculable proportions.”

The Libre party challenged the official results and supporters took to the streets across the Central American country. However, Hernandez's victory was eventually ratified by Organization of American States and EU international observers.

After the 2009 coup against the progressive government of Zelaya, millions of people in have been hoping that a new electoral process would help restore the social and political stability in the impoverished nation, where the crime and violence levels are critically high.