Hernandez Has Early Lead Over Castro in Honduran Vote

[Bacchus4.0]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-24/honduras-voters-choose-president-as-drug-violence-crimps-growth.html

..Juan Orlando Hernandez, a lawyer and former head of Congress, is leading the presidential election in Honduras over the wife of ousted former President Manuel Zelaya, with both candidates claiming victory.

With 54 percent of precincts reporting, the ruling National Party’s Hernandez had about 34 percent of the votes cast in yesterday’s election, compared with 29 percent for Xiomara Castro, the country’s electoral tribunal said last night in its final update of the evening. There is no second round vote in Honduras, so whoever gets the most votes wins. The head of the European Union’s observer mission said voting was “peaceful and transparent” amid record turnout.

.During the campaign, Hernandez and Castro vowed to address crime fueled by drug gangs that have made Honduras the most violent nation in the world, according to the United Nations. Castro, whose husband was forced out of the country at gunpoint in 2009, was also seeking to break a century-long hold on the presidential palace by the country’s two traditional parties. Hernandez, 45, said people wanted to move on from the coup.

“The Honduran people voted to leave the 2009 crisis, the worst Honduras has ever had, behind,” Hernandez told supporters in the capital, Tegucigalpa, yesterday. He vowed to use the military to “regain peace and calm” in the country.