Opposition demands annulment of Honduras presidential election

More than two weeks after the 26 November poll, official results show that incumbent Juan Orlando Hernández of the National Party of Honduras (PNH) won the vote with 42.98% to Salvador Nasralla’s 41.38%. However, the Electoral Tribunal of Honduras has launched a partial recount of 4,753 polling stations, which may yet sway the election in favour of Nasralla. The delay in the announcement of the election results has led to allegations of vote-rigging, and set off a wave of street protests by opposition supporters, some of which resulted in violence and looting. In response, the government imposed a curfew, which the National Police subsequently refused to enforce. Despite the events of recent weeks plunging the country into political crisis and uncertainty, Honduran sovereign bonds continue to perform well. They remain among the highest-yielding sovereign bonds globally, yielding 1.24% in the past week in Bloomberg’s USD Emerging Market Sovereign Bond Index. This suggests that investors are not deterred by the current instability, signals wider confidence in the country’s macroeconomic stability and growth projections, regardless of the outcome of the
election, due to be announced on 26 December.

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