Opposition Alliance Candidate Leads Honduran Presidential Elections

Tegucigalpa, Nov 27 (Prensa Latina) The presidential candidate of the Opposition Alliance, Salvador Nasralla, is ahead by almost five points of the president Juan Orlando Hernández, of the ruling National Party, after the first result of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) of Honduras released today.

Judge David Matamoros said that Nasralla adds 855,847 votes, representing 45.17 percent, with 57 percent of the polling stations counted.

Hernandez, on the other hand, accumulates 761,872 votes, equivalent to 40.21 percent of the tables, he added.

Before the first cut of the vote count, presented by the TSE 10 hours after the closing of the polls, both candidates proclaimed themselves winners of the general elections held yesterday.

In third place is the candidate of the Liberal Party, Luis Zelaya, with 260,994 votes (13.17 percent).

The elections were held normally, according to national and international observers, despite the controversy over Hernandez's aspiration to be reelected in office, an unprecedented fact since the return of Honduras to democracy in 1980.

The opposition considers the postulation of the president institutional, because the Honduran Magna Carta, in force since 1982, prohibits re-election under any modality, but a ruling by the judiciary in 2015 left that possibility open.

Nine candidates from 10 political parties participated in the contest that called for more than six million citizens.

In addition to the presidency of the country, Hondurans voted for some 3,000 public offices, including the 128 deputies to the National Congress and 20 to the Central American Parliament, as well as the municipal councils of 298 mayoralties.