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Honduras commission agrees to vote recount

Honduras’ electoral commission has agreed to recount vote tally sheets from the presidential election, after it received a fraud complaint from runner-up candidate Xiomara Castro.

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The president of Honduras’ Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE), David Matamoras, said Monday that the commission had agreed to review the electoral rolls and results from the November 24 poll.

“Let us find the tools for it, and let’s do this in the most public way possible so that absolutely no doubt remains,” said David Matamoros.

In addition, Matamoros said if the process would show Castro did not win, she should publicly accept her defeat.

According to official election results, Castro, the Libre party candidate, lost the election eight percentage points to ruling National Party’s Juan Orlando Hernandez, who won with 36.8 percent.

Castro, the wife of ousted former president Manuel Zelaya claims the tally sheets were altered and the vote registry included people who were deceased or living abroad.

Zelaya has asked for the 16,135 original polling station summary documents to be sent to the TSE headquarters for manual review.

In addition, he would like at least 200 technicians to be present together with the Libre party to monitor the recount process.

The commission’s decision comes a day after more than 5,000 supporters of Castro marched on the offices of the election commission in the capital of Tegucigalpa to demand a recount of the ballots.

The European Union and the US-based Organization of American States observers say the election in Honduras was transparent.

However, an Austrian official, who was one of the EU observers, stated that while their preliminary report may have stated the elections were transparent, many disagreed.

A prominent Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon, who observed the voting, also said there were incidents of electoral fraud using various means and methods.

The new president of Honduras will face the difficult task of fighting poverty. Seventy percent of the 8.4 million people of the country are living in poverty.

Honduras also faces the highest rate of homicide in the world with 20 murders reported every day, as youth gangs control major portions of the country.

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