Vote count begins as Hondurans choose president
Baku, November 25 (AZERTAC). Hondurans cast ballots for a new president Sunday in a country reeling from violence, poverty and the legacy of a 2009 coup, and the ruling conservative party candidate took the lead in early vote counting.The electoral court said preliminary results gave Juan Orlando Hernandez, the candidate of the governing National Party, a comfortable edge over Xiomara Castro, whose husband Manuel Zelaya was overthrown in the military-backed coup.The two had entered the day neck-and-neck in opinion polls. Hernandez erased Castro's early lead in a field of eight candidates with his new military police and the promise of law and order in a country with the highest murder rate in the world.
David Matamoros, president of Honduras' electoral court, said final results were not expected until early Monday."The preliminary results we have given so far do not show any tendency or declare any winner," he said Sunday night.Because there is no runoff, whoever wins will likely have no more than a third of the vote and face a divided congress, whose 128 members were also up for election. The political situation indicates that little is likely to change in the failing state, where violence and poverty have grown worse during the four years under outgoing President Porfirio Lobo, also of the National Party.View gallery."Soldiers patrol outside a voting station after polls.The predicted tight race raised fears of a disputed result that could produce more instability and protests.
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