Honduran political stalemate after presidential election

Honduran Supreme Electoral Court (SEC) on Sunday evening officially announced that the opposition presidential candidate Porfirio Lovo was elected president of Honduras with 220,000 votes, more votes won than his rival candidate from the ruling Liberal Party, Elvin Santos.

Earlier, the majority of Latin American countries said they would not recognize the election results. Therefore, some analysts maintained，the political crisis that had started at the end of June this year would not come to a close with the conclusion of the presidential election.

President-elect Porfirio Lobo, 61, who was elected a member of Honduran Parliament in 1989, lost to Manuel Zelaya in 2005 presidential election. While announcing the election results in this presidential election, the Honduran SEC also acknowledged at the same time a "technical failure" in the voting process and confessed that the vote accounting was conducted through cell phone or telephone and ever via verbal statistics. According to statistics, the turnout rate on Nov. 29 reached 61.3 percent.

Deposed President Manuel Zelaya, currently taken refuge in Brazilian embassy in Honduras, said that the election was a "fraud". There had been no right of free election at all for millions of people in Honduras under military dictatorship. The United Nations, the Organization of American States, the European Union (EU) as well as the internationally-recognized Observation Institution did not send observers to monitor the election.

Voters in the northern city of San Pedro Sula had clashes with police, and dozen of them were arrested for their firm opposition and resistance to the presidential election, noted media reports in Honduras, and the majority of Latin American countries insisted that they would not recognize the election outcome.

Brazilian President Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva said on the very voting day that Brazil "needs to adhere to principles" and, otherwise, there would be no warning to "other risk takers", and that his government would "reconsider" the issue of Honduras.

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