Conservative's lead in Honduras presidential race 'irreversible'

The Honduran ruling conservative party's presidential candidate is headed for victory, the electoral body said Monday, heralding continuity in a country plagued by gang violence and poverty. The vote count in the Central American country stood at 34.08 percent for Juan Orlando Hernandez compared to 28.92 percent for leftist Xiomara Castro, with 67 percent of the votes counted. "The outcome is decisive. The figures that we have reported reflect a trend that is irreversible. The outcome is not going to change," said David Matamoros, head of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, though Castro earlier claimed victory herself. Matamoros did not declare a winner, however. Hernandez, a 45 year old lawyer, and Castro both declared victory after polls closed late Sunday. "The people have chosen. Now, let's get down to work," Hernandez said Monday. Political tension gripped Honduras throughout the day as the conservative candidate insisted he had won the presidential vote, while the leftist opposition rejected the result and threatened to take to the streets. The clash between Hernandez, of the National Party, and Castro of a party called Libre brought new uncertainty to a deeply troubled country, also reeling from the wounds of a 2009 coup. Castro's husband, the deposed former president Manuel Zelaya, told reporters earlier that her camp does not accept the results after claiming that the election was stolen. He claimed "serious  inconsistencies" in one-in-five polling stations. Hundreds of Castro supporters protested in front of the tribunal amid a heavy police and military deployment across the nation. But Hernandez said the result was "not negotiable with anybody" and he named a transition team to succeed President Porfirio Lobo, urging Castro to join him in a "great national pact" against violence and poverty. The governments of Colombia, Guatemala, Panama and Costa Rica congratulated Hernandez. Nicaragua's leftist President Daniel Ortega also recognized Hernandez as the winner. In Washington, US State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki congratulated Honduras for a peaceful election and said international observers reported that the vote was "generally transparent." Psaki urged Hondurans to wait for the completion of the vote count and "to resolve election disputes peacefully through established legal processes." In Caracas, President Nicolas Maduro bluntly slammed the US ambassador to Honduras, Lisa Kubiske, for US assistance that he called "meddling in Honduran domestic affairs." "Gringos get out; Yankees Go Home from Honduras, enough already," Maduro said. "Our blood boils when we see a US ambassador meddling in Honduras' domestic affairs ... She comes out and says the United States has trained the (electoral authority), has invested I don't know how many million dollars teaching Hondurans how to vote, that the results were such and such, and had to be respected. ... I want to express our outrage." Lobo, who will hand over the presidency on January 27, called on Hondurans to avoid confrontation and congratulated Hernandez for his "very deserved electoral victory," calling him the "president-elect." While Castro remained out of sight, her husband did the talking. "We will defend our triumph," Zelaya told reporters at a hotel in Tegucigalpa as hundreds of supporters chanted "We hear it, we feel it, Xiomara president!" "We will go to the streets if necessary to defend our rights," pledged Zelaya, a former conservative who was ousted by a right-wing alliance in a military-backed coup in 2009 after his politics veered to the left. The conservative parties and military dictators have exchanged the presidency in the Central American nation since 1902. Political conflict would add to the woes of a country plagued by the world's highest murder rate, massive poverty and the divisions created by the coup. Hernandez, who is also speaker of the legislature, said the people had spoken at the ballot box. "The voice of the people is the voice of God," he said, while recognizing that the election will bring two new parties to Congress, including Castro's Libre movement. Hondurans also voted for 128 congressional seats and 298 mayors. The election's winner will inherit a country of 8.5 million people with 71 percent of the population living in poverty and a soaring homicide rate of 20 murders per day. Hernandez favors an "iron fist" approach against gangs, with 5,000 military police officers in the streets to confront the heavily-armed Mara 18 and Mara Salvatrucha gangs.