Early unofficial results from the much-disputed presidential election in Honduras have put conservative opposition candidate Porfirio Lobo in the lead over his liberal rival, Elvin Santos.
No official results had been released by late on Sunday, but exit polls put Lobo, candidate for the opposition National Party, in a clear lead with about 55 per cent of the vote.
Santos, his closest challenger, trailed with about 33 per cent.
Sunday's vote was held five months after a military coup ousted the country's leftist president, Manuel Zelaya, plunging the country into political gridlock.
The interim government, installed after the coup, has said the poll will end the bitter stand-off over the country's leadership.
But supporters of the ousted president have called the election illegitimate and Zelaya himself called for a boycott.
Neither Zelaya nor the man who replaced him - Roberto Micheletti, the interim president – ran in the vote.
After polls closed, Zelaya told Al Jazeera he had information from his own poll conducted at more than 1,000 polling stations indicating that abstention rates had been between 60 and 65 per cent.
"This means that the election had low turnout and did not have the support of the people of Honduras," he said, speaking from inside the Brazilian embassy in the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa.
Zelaya has been taking refuge in the Brazilian mission since sneaking back into the country several weeks ago.
'Dictatorship'
"We are fighting a dictatorship and until we defeat it we will not be satisfied," he said.
Sunday's elections, Zelaya said, had "no respect and no credibility".
Many regional powers, including the United States, have been divided over whether or not to recognise the outcome of the election.
Analysts say how much credibility the vote will be given will depend to a large extent on voter turnout.
Some Latin American countries such as Brazil, Venezuela and Argentina have already said they will not back the result.
"It's not possible to accept a coup, whether it’s a military coup or dressed up as a civilian coup," Brazil's president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, told reporters.
But the US has said that as long as the poll is shown to be free and fair, an election is the only way to resolve Honduras' political standoff.
Al Jazeera's Craig Mauro, reporting from the Tegucigalpa, said turnout had been very low in the city's poorer districts where support for Zelaya is strongest, but had been much higher in wealthier areas.
Polarised
Lucia Newman, Al Jazeera's Latin America editor, said the country remains highly polarised more than five months after Zelaya's ouster.
As a result, she said, turnout had been mixed with about one-third of voters expected to stay away from the polls either to protest Zelaya's ouster or for fear of violence.
More than 5,000 polling stations, including six in the United States for the about one million Honduran immigrants there, opened at 7am (13:00GMT) on Sunday.
Several opened late however, and polling was extended by up to two hours in some areas.
Conservative Porfirio Lobo and Liberal Elvin Santos, two prosperous businessmen, have been the front-runners in the vote.
But their campaigns have been overshadowed by the debate over whether Hondurans should vote at all in an election largely shunned by international monitors.
Lobo has said that if he wins, he will plead with foreign leaders to restore funding and seek a new agreement with the International Monetary Fund.
Honduras has been shut out by foreign donors since the June 28 coup, badly damaging the economy of one of Latin America's poorest nations.
Protest
Tensions were high across the country as voting got underway on Sunday, and in the northern city of San Pedro clashes broke out after police fired tear gas at several hundred pro-Zelaya protesters.
At least one person was injured and several of the protesters hurled rocks back at police.
However there were no reports of major unrest elsewhere in the country and reports said voting day had passed off calmly in Tegucigalpa.
The election was organised before Zelaya was removed from power, with the candidates chosen in primaries last year.
"These elections would have been the same, whether Zelaya had been there or not," Edward Schumacher-Matos, a newspaper columnist and Latin America analyst, said.
"You had a constitutional crisis that was precipitated by the president himself," he told Al Jazeera in New York.
"He was ordered arrested by the supreme court for violating the constitution. He tried to carry out a referendum that the supreme court, the congress, his own attorney-general and the human rights ombudsman all said was a violation of the constitution and illegal."
Zelaya had called for a vote asking the public whether they would support attempts to remove the one-term limit for the presidency set out in the constitution.
Source: Al Jazeera
No official results had been released by late on Sunday, but exit polls put Lobo, candidate for the opposition National Party, in a clear lead with about 55 per cent of the vote.
Santos, his closest challenger, trailed with about 33 per cent.
Sunday's vote was held five months after a military coup ousted the country's leftist president, Manuel Zelaya, plunging the country into political gridlock.
The interim government, installed after the coup, has said the poll will end the bitter stand-off over the country's leadership.
But supporters of the ousted president have called the election illegitimate and Zelaya himself called for a boycott.
Neither Zelaya nor the man who replaced him - Roberto Micheletti, the interim president – ran in the vote.
After polls closed, Zelaya told Al Jazeera he had information from his own poll conducted at more than 1,000 polling stations indicating that abstention rates had been between 60 and 65 per cent.
"This means that the election had low turnout and did not have the support of the people of Honduras," he said, speaking from inside the Brazilian embassy in the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa.
Zelaya has been taking refuge in the Brazilian mission since sneaking back into the country several weeks ago.
'Dictatorship'
"We are fighting a dictatorship and until we defeat it we will not be satisfied," he said.
Sunday's elections, Zelaya said, had "no respect and no credibility".
Many regional powers, including the United States, have been divided over whether or not to recognise the outcome of the election.
Analysts say how much credibility the vote will be given will depend to a large extent on voter turnout.
Some Latin American countries such as Brazil, Venezuela and Argentina have already said they will not back the result.
"It's not possible to accept a coup, whether it’s a military coup or dressed up as a civilian coup," Brazil's president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, told reporters.
But the US has said that as long as the poll is shown to be free and fair, an election is the only way to resolve Honduras' political standoff.
Al Jazeera's Craig Mauro, reporting from the Tegucigalpa, said turnout had been very low in the city's poorer districts where support for Zelaya is strongest, but had been much higher in wealthier areas.
Polarised
Lucia Newman, Al Jazeera's Latin America editor, said the country remains highly polarised more than five months after Zelaya's ouster.
As a result, she said, turnout had been mixed with about one-third of voters expected to stay away from the polls either to protest Zelaya's ouster or for fear of violence.
More than 5,000 polling stations, including six in the United States for the about one million Honduran immigrants there, opened at 7am (13:00GMT) on Sunday.
Several opened late however, and polling was extended by up to two hours in some areas.
Conservative Porfirio Lobo and Liberal Elvin Santos, two prosperous businessmen, have been the front-runners in the vote.
But their campaigns have been overshadowed by the debate over whether Hondurans should vote at all in an election largely shunned by international monitors.
Lobo has said that if he wins, he will plead with foreign leaders to restore funding and seek a new agreement with the International Monetary Fund.
Honduras has been shut out by foreign donors since the June 28 coup, badly damaging the economy of one of Latin America's poorest nations.
Protest
Tensions were high across the country as voting got underway on Sunday, and in the northern city of San Pedro clashes broke out after police fired tear gas at several hundred pro-Zelaya protesters.
At least one person was injured and several of the protesters hurled rocks back at police.
However there were no reports of major unrest elsewhere in the country and reports said voting day had passed off calmly in Tegucigalpa.
The election was organised before Zelaya was removed from power, with the candidates chosen in primaries last year.
"These elections would have been the same, whether Zelaya had been there or not," Edward Schumacher-Matos, a newspaper columnist and Latin America analyst, said.
"You had a constitutional crisis that was precipitated by the president himself," he told Al Jazeera in New York.
"He was ordered arrested by the supreme court for violating the constitution. He tried to carry out a referendum that the supreme court, the congress, his own attorney-general and the human rights ombudsman all said was a violation of the constitution and illegal."
Zelaya had called for a vote asking the public whether they would support attempts to remove the one-term limit for the presidency set out in the constitution.
Source: Al Jazeera
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