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MANUEL ZELAYA TO HEAD HONDURAS AND REDEFINE HIS PARTY.

Article Excerpt
Manuel "Mel" Zelaya of the Partido Liberal (PL) is president-elect of Honduras. His victory was suspected soon after the Nov. 27 election (see NotiCen, 2005-12-01), but the failure of the Tribunal Supremo Electoral (TSE) to produce the data led his opponent, Porfirio Lobo Sosa of the ruling Partido Nacional (PN), to refuse to concede until Dec. 5, when the data became available, abundant, and overwhelming. Even then, however, the TSE had still not published the full count or certified the results.

The reasons for the delay have still not been made public, but TSE sources have told the media that there had been tampering of some kind with the data, leading PL party president Patricia Rodas to comment, "It is becoming clear that the system's software was manipulated in such a way that precise results were impossible to obtain."

On the basis of exit polls and scrutiny by election observers, there seems little doubt that the data is representative and that the election process went off in an acceptable manner.

Campaign managers crucial

Blame and credit, respectively, have been given to the candidates' advisors, Ecuadoran Cesar Verduga for Zelaya and Mark Klugman for Lobo Sosa. Verduga achieved a reputation for his handling of the resignation (see NotiSur, 1997-05-30)...

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