Honduran president in lead as count wraps up

No winner is declared. Reports circulate that police are refusing to enforce the curfew.

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, seeking a second term in office, continued to hold a slim lead Monday as officials largely completed the count in disputed national balloting.

But eight days after the voting, authorities had yet to proclaim a winner as the opposition continued to allege widespread fraud.

Uncertainty stemming from the Nov. 26 vote has generated a political crisis and prompted the government to call a dusk-to-dawn curfew in response to widespread street protests and looting.

Reports were circulating Monday that some police had refused to enforce the curfew and put down antigovernment protests in certain parts of the country and declared work stoppages — and that the stoppages were spreading. Top law enforcement officials, including Julian Pacheco, the government’s minister of security, went on television to say the situation was under control.

The chief presidential challenger, Salvador Nasralla — who has assailed what he called governmentbacked violence against the opposition — said in a Facebook post that he backed “the police who refuse to repress our people” and called on the military to follow suit.

With 99.98% of the national vote counted, the electoral tribunal’s website Monday showed the president with 42.98%, compared with 41.38% for Nasralla, a television personality who ran on an anti-corruption pledge. The remaining vote went to other parties.

Both candidates have already declared victory.

The main opposition coalition, the Alliance Against the Dictatorship, is demanding a broad recount, alleging numerous irregularities in balloting that has seen mysterious technical crashes, delayed results and widely varying tallies of who is winning. The electoral court has not ruled out the possibility of conducting a broad recount.

Hernandez’s candidacy is controversial because a Honduran Supreme Court ruling allowed him to seek a second term in apparent violation of the constitution.

Johan Ordonez AFP/Getty Images HONDURANS cheer the arrival of riot police at the unit’s Tegucigalpa headquarters, where officers are refusing to go out on the street to confront protesters.