Honduran leader Hernandez declares victory

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Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, a US ally from the center-right National Party, on Sunday cited exit polls to declare himself winner of the poor Central American nation's election, despite the opposition saying it also had won.

Earlier, an exit poll from a private TV network forecast victory for Honduras' US-friendly president in his bid for a second term, but an opposition alliance rejected the projection, saying its own candidate won a resounding victory.

Soldiers move election materials for distribution at voting stations ahead of the November 26 presidential election in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, November 25, 2017. /Reuters Photo

The poll by network Televicentro, generally considered a reliable indicator of results, gave President Juan Orlando Hernandez 43.93 percent of the vote, with Salvador Nasralla, who leads a broad left-right coalition called the Opposition Alliance Against the Dictatorship, at 34.70 percent.

Hernandez, of the center-right National Party, does not need a majority of votes to win.

The opposition alliance rejected the exit poll, saying its own polls from some 20 percent of polling stations gave it 45 percent of the vote, compared with 34 percent for Hernandez.

"I can confirm that the president is Salvador Nasralla. We won the elections at a national level," said opposition coordinator Manuel Zelaya, a former president ousted in a 2009 coup.

A man hangs posters of Salvador Nasralla, presidential candidate for the Opposition Alliance Against the Dictatorship, outside a polling station during the presidential election in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, November 26, 2017. /Reuters Photo

An estimated six million people are eligible to vote, electing not just a president but also members of Congress, mayors and members of the Central American parliament.

"We hope this will be a civic celebration," said David Matamoros, head of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, in declaring the polls open.

Hernandez's conservative National Party – which controls the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government – contends that a 2015 Supreme Court ruling allows his re-election.

The opposition, though, has denounced his bid, saying the court does not have the power to overrule the 1982 constitution.

Hernandez cast his vote early in his hometown of Gracias, in mountainous western Honduras, accompanied by his daughter and several National Party deputies.

Honduran army troops helped turn schools into polling stations. /AFP Photo

This small country, in the heart of the "Northern Triangle" of Central America where gangs and poverty reign, has one of the highest murder rates in the world, though that metric has fallen under Hernandez's four years in office.

What credit he claims from that progress is counterbalanced by tensions from a 2009 coup.

That year, then-president Manuel Zelaya was deposed by the armed forces, with backing from the right and from powerful businessmen, for nudging closer to Venezuela's Hugo Chavez.

Zelaya was notably accused of wanting to change the constitution to vie for a second term.

'Between dictatorship and democracy'

Hernandez, 49, who came to power in 2013, was seen as the front-runner going into Sunday's election, out of a field of nine candidates.

His closest rivals are Salvador Nasralla, a 64-year-old TV anchor-turned-politician who represents the left wing Opposition Alliance Against the Dictatorship coalition, and Luis Zelaya (not related to Manuel Zelaya), 50, who is the candidate of the right-leaning Liberal Party.

Some analysts warn tensions could boil over because of the president's desire to hold on to power. /AFP Photo

The streets of the capital, Tegucigalpa, were festooned with the main parties' colors on the weekend, and campaign booths were dotted around to inform voters on the ballots.

But some analysts warned the calm was deceptive, and tensions could boil over because of the president's desire to hold on to power.

"For the first time, it's not a race between conservatives and liberals, but between a dictatorship and democracy," said Victor Meza, a political analyst at the Honduras Documentation Center.

The elections could pose the risk of a new crisis in Honduras. /AFP Photo

Alexander Main, an analyst at the US-based Center for Economic and Policy Research, questioned Honduras' law-and-order achievements in an opinion piece written for The Hill, an online political news outlet.

"Honduras remains among the most dangerous countries for those who dare to challenge power," he said. "In the years since the coup, hundreds of activists have been murdered while police and judicial authorities have largely failed to take action."

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Source(s): AFP ,Reuters