Voters in deeply-troubled Honduras went to the polls today to elect a new president in a race between two conservatives likely to be won by a US-educated businessman with limited experience.
"Let's all vote against crime, against poverty and in favor of transparency," said Mr Ricardo Maduro, 55, the clear favorite to win the presidential balloting.
"Hondurans will vote for a peasant," said his main opponent, Mr Rafael Pineda, 71, a former school teacher whose parents eked out a living on a small plot of land.
Crime is a formidable challenge in a country where 8,000 poorly paid police face 30,000 gang members. So is the challenge of improving the lot of the 80 per cent of the 6.3 million population who live in poverty. Unemployment is estimated at more than 35 per cent and 40 per cent of the population is illiterate.
Mr Maduro, whose only son was kidnapped and killed three years ago, has pledged to adopt a "zero tolerance" policy against crime similar to the one implemented by New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, for whom he has expressed great admiration.
The two leading candidates, both of them conservatives, promised to tackle the dual scourges of poverty and crime.
Rampant violence even took its toll on the campaign on Friday when a candidate to the legislature was gunned down at his home.
The country's fragile economy has been deeply hurt by falling coffee prices, floods and drought, even as Honduras still struggles to recover from the devastation wrought by Hurricane Mitch in 1998.
AFP