Maduro Wins Presidency in Honduras Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit Monday November 26 1:35 AM ET (via yahoo) Conservative Businessman Wins Honduras Presidency By Elizabeth Fullerton TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (Reuters) - Honduras' main opposition leader claimed victory in presidential elections on Sunday and promised to use his four-year term to clamp down on rampant crime and attack poverty in the nation of 6.3 million. Ricardo Maduro, a conservative businessman and former central bank chief, told euphoric supporters at the National Party headquarters in the capital Tegucigalpa that early returns and the party's figures showed victory was assured. "We've done it. Hondurans have won," a jubilant Maduro said to cheers and vigorous flag-waving by supporters. Maduro's main rival, the ruling Liberal Party's Rafael Pineda, accepted defeat gracefully late on Sunday night. With some 740,000 votes counted, the electoral tribunal said Maduro had 52.7 percent support against Pineda's 43.8. Some 3.4 million Hondurans were eligible to vote. Maduro's fans took to the streets, hooting horns and firing bangers. But the murder of a congressional candidate from Maduro's party on Saturday cast a shadow over his triumph. Maduro has vowed "zero tolerance" against crime in the Central American nation where 70 percent of the population live in poverty and armed street gangs run amok. His own son was killed in a botched kidnap attempt in 1997. "We are going to fight to end crime and we're going to manage it," said Maduro, promising sweeping reforms in government aimed at spurring economic growth. School teacher Pineda, who heads Congress, focused his campaign on education as the key to battling crime. RETURN TO POWER Honduran politics have been dominated for the past century by the two parties, although the National Party has only ruled once since military rule was replaced by democracy in 1982. In a poor district of Tegucigalpa, bricklayer Felipe Romero, 68, lamented high unemployment as he cast his vote. "I want them to create jobs and cut crime. (But) neither the Liberals nor Nationalists fulfill their promises in this country," he said. Social inequality is pronounced in Honduras, where the nation's wealth is concentrated in the hands of a small elite. Maduro, who has three children, comes from an affluent family with business interests ranging from hotel chains and banks to shrimp farming and shopping malls. He is committed to opening up Honduras' economy in line with a series of debt relief deals with global lenders. Honduras has an estimated $4.08 billion in foreign debt. Coffee and banana exporter Honduras was pummeled by Hurricane Mitch in 1998, and a crippling drought and tropical storm this year. A slump in world coffee prices and an economic downturn in the United States, its main trading partner, have aggravated the nation's woes. Hondurans living in the United States were eligible to vote at special booths set up in New York, Miami and Los Angeles. Foreign observers said voting was without major hitches. The one blot on the political landscape was the murder of congressional candidate Angel Pacheco, 44, by a man waiting outside his home south of the capital. Police said the murder appeared to be politically motivated and that three employees of a Liberal Party deputy had been arrested in the case. Voters also picked 128 members of Congress and 298 mayors around the country. Three presidential contenders from smaller parties were expected to net less than 5 percent of the vote between them. ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytcamer-11.26.01-12:12:02-11614