by the El Reportero’s news service
Juan Orlando HernándezConservative Juan Orlando Hernández, the candidate of the governing National Party, has been declared the winner of the presidential election held last week in Honduras, election officials said.
Hernandez won 36.8 percent of the vote, while former first lady Xiomara Castro, of the leftist Liberty and Refounding Party, or Libre, garnered 28.79 percent, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, or TSE, said.
The final results were released on Saturday, six days after the election was held in the Central American country.
“As a result, the winner of the elections at the presidential level is attorney Juan Orlando Hernandez Alvarado, of the National Party of Honduras,” TSE chairman David Matamoros told radio and television networks.
Matamoros did not say what percentage of the ballots were counted to achieve the final result.
The TSE will continue “with the counts at the level of National Congress legislators and municipal entities, following the established technical and legal rules,” Matamoros said. The Libre party said it would ask the TSE on Sunday for a review of hundreds of allegedly defective ballots.
Castro is the wife of President Mel Zelaya, who was ousted in a June 28, 2009, coup. Honduras, unlike some other Latin American nations, does not require an absolute majority for victory.
Honduras has the world’s highest murder rate, but last Sunday’s voting was largely peaceful, though five people were gunned down nearing a polling place.
REPORT: Most corrupt Latin American countries
Transparency International’s annual Corruption Perceptions Index was released this week.
The report found that corruption worsened in Latin America over the past year as economic heavyweights Brazil and Mexico didn’t improve and gang-plagued Central America worsened. The Corruption Perceptions Index ranks countries and territories based on how corrupt their public sector is perceived to be.
The countries that had the least perceived corruption were Denmark and New Zealand who scored 91 out of 100 on the survey. The countries that had the highest perceived corruption were Afghanistan, North Korea, and Somalia who scored 8 out of 100 on the survey. The least perceived corrupt country was Uruguay, who tied with the United States with a score of 73 out of 100.
Checkout Latincorrupt countries below. 123. Dominican Republic (29 out of 100) 123. Guatemala (29 out of 100) 127. Nicaragua (28 out of 100) 140. Honduras (26 out of 100) 150. Paraguay (24 out of 100) 160. Venezuela (20 out of 100)
USA deports more than 46,000 Guatemalans
The number of Guatemalans deported from the United States in the first 11 months of the year totaled to 46,198, which was 23 percent more than the same period last year, the National Immigration Office said. Of the total deported this year so far, 41,965 are men, 3,941 are women and 292 were younger than 18, the office said. The higher number of deportations did not negatively impact family remittances, which totaled $4.281
America’s most
