Ruling party candidate Juan Orlando wins Honduran presidency

The Honduran elections authority declared that Juan Orlando Hernandez won the Central American country’s presidential vote. With 80% of votes counted, officials said, Hernandez had secured more than 35% of the vote, placing him 6 percentage points ahead of his closest competitor, according to the (CNN). “These figures that we are releasing today clearly indicate that the winner of the general elections is Juan Orlando Hernandez, candidate from the (ruling) National Party of Honduras,” said David Matamoros Batson, president of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal. But Wednesday’s announcement from the tribunal and reports from elections observers calling the elections transparent didn’t stop calls for protests from critics who said electoral fraud had tainted the results from Sunday’s vote. Xiomara Castro, a leftist candidate who officials said came in second place with more than 29% of votes, said in a Twitter post that she would speak about the election results on Friday. Castro, the wife of former President Manuel Zelaya, has also declared victory, and her supporters have said they plan to hold a protest on Saturday.