Hondurans Elect New President Fifth Peaceful Power Transfer A Feat In Coup-Plagued Region
A 47-year-old newspaper owner, Carlos Flores Facusse, appeared to have won Sunday’s presidential election here, according to an exit poll, defeating Nora Gunera de Melgar, widow of a former military president.
An exit poll broadcast by the national Televicentro network showed Flores with a 55-40 percent advantage in the capital, Tegucigalpa, and a 60-35 percent lead in the country’s second-largest city, San Pedro Sula.
Televicentro broadcast the poll at 5 p.m. after polls closed nationwide. It gave no margin of error, but its exit poll was in line with pre-election polls.
Televicentro said Flores’ Liberal Party also had a strong lead in congressional races, though the National Party’s Carlos Castellanos appeared to have won the mayoral race in the capital.
When the new president takes office on Jan. 27, it will be the fifth consecutive transfer of power between civilians - a feat in Central America, where coups and military dictatorships have been common.
More jobs and better wages were on the minds of many voters in what is one of the poorest countries in Latin America. Forty-five percent of Hondurans are unemployed or underemployed.
But neither of the two main presidential candidates made fighting poverty a priority in the campaign, choosing to focus instead of catchy songs and grandiose speeches.
In a way, it mattered little. Honduras’ two main political parties - the Liberals and the Nationals - have alternated in power since 1906, and many families hand down party affiliation from generation to generation.
“I am Catholic because of my family’s traditions. And I am Liberal because of my family traditions,” said Ricardo Blanco, 40, a land assessor emerging from a voting booth in the town of Santa Lucia.
“Everyone has their preference. It’s like Coke and Pepsi.”
xxxx THE ELECTION Nearly three million Hondurans were registered to vote in Sunday’s election for president, 128 members of the one-house Congress and 297 mayors - all the elected officials in Honduras.