Zelaya calls Honduran election a "fraud" (Extra)

Nov 30, 2009, 19:04 GMT

   Tegucigalpa - Ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya Monday condemned the presidential elections held in the Central American country a day earlier is an act of 'electoral fraud.'

   Conservative candidate Porfirio Lobo emerged as the winner in Sunday's poll, which was staged by the de facto government despite Zelaya's call for an election boycott.

Zelaya, who was ousted by a military coup and sent into exile on June 28, disputed the finding by Honduran electoral authorities that voter turnout was above 61 per cent.

Instead, he said he would show 'peacefully' that more than 60 per cent of voters abstained.

'A dictatorial regime has been set up in Honduras that wants to deceive us,' Zelaya said.

From the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa, where he took refuge upon his secret return to Honduras on September 21, Zelaya called his supporters to resist what he regards as a null and void electoral process.

'The coup is still going on here, impunity is rife on Honduras' streets,' he stressed.

He spoke of a 'latent threat' that also affects Lobo.

'He is also under threat from the military and the people who orchestrated the coup,' Zelaya said of the man that some see as Honduras' president-elect.

   The National Party's Lobo got 52.3 per cent of the vote Sunday, according to preliminary official results. He beat Elvin Santos of the Liberal Party, who polled 35.8 per cent. Both Zelaya and coup leader Roberto Micheletti belong to the Liberal Party.