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Caribbean-Latin America
Zelaya claims victory in Honduran presidential vote
2005-11-28
But I think we all saw this coming.
TEGUCIGALPA - Opposition Liberal Party candidate Manuel Zelaya declared victory on Sunday after an exit poll showed him with 50.6 percent of the vote in Honuduras presidential election. Zelaya beat Porfirio Lobo, of the governing National Party, who has garnered 44.3 percent of the vote, the poll found.

Polls officially closed in most of Honduras at 4:00 pm (2200 GMT), and early returns were expected at 9:00 pm (0300 GMT Monday). “There were minor problems, such as a lack of indelible ink at some polling stations, but the rest went well,” Organization of American States spokesman Carlos Flores told AFP. Over 100 OAS observers were present.

Zelaya, who will replace President Ricardo Maduro, will take the helm of a small Central American country with 30 percent unemployment and 70 percent of the population of seven million living in poverty. Zelaya, 53, a civil engineer, rancher and former investment minister who has twice run successfully for the National Congress, advocates instituting life imprisonment for gang members and a free-market economy.
I like this guy. What's he doing in 2008?
He will inaugurate his four-year term on January 27.

Honduras’ 3.9 million eligible voters also chose a vice president, 128 legislators and an equal number of alternates as well as mayors of 298 municipalities.

Zelaya comes from a family of ranchers in Olancho and was president of the Association of Wood Industries, the director of the Honduran Private Enterprise Council and managed a bank as well as other businesses. He served as minister of the Honduran Social Security Fund under president Carlos Flores, a difficult time for the ministry as Honduras was devastated by Hurricane Mitch in 1998.

It fell to the ministry to rebuild roads, buildings, aqueducts and other public works, involving local communities in setting their priorities. Zelaya promised to revisit the idea and apply it to other tasks, such as crime, under his campaign slogan, “citizen power.” However, his detractors in the National Party claimed he took the slogan from neighboring Nicaragua’s Saninista president Daniel Ortega.

The Social Forum for Foreign Debt and Social Development of Honduras (FOSDEH) lamented that “what should have been addressed during the campaign” wound up “being buried”. The gangs have become “the country’s principal problem, over poverty, misery, corruption, a weak economy, immigration, lack of jobs,” the Forum said in a statement.
"The people never vote the way we tell them to!" the Forum lamented in its statement.
Posted by:Steve White

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