Hondurans Dubious about Elections
As the November 27 elections draw near, doubts fill the minds of Hondurans, due to broken promises by previous governments and dirty political campagins.

Before being sworn in on January 22 2002, outgoing President Ricardo Maduro vowed to eliminate violence, poverty and corruption.

But authorities have been unable to stop the mounting violence that has taken the lives of 359 people from January to October, despite measures taken to fight crime.

They have also been unable to find the people responsible for the massacres in the prisons of El Porvenir, in April 2003, and Sal Pedro Sula, on May 17 and December 23 2004, which left 204 dead.

Maduro boasts of controlling inflation, reducing the fiscal deficit and obtaining the write-off of half of the internal debt, however, the nation is the poorest of Latin America, only behind Haiti and Nicaragua.

His administration has been connected with corruption scandals such as the traffic of visas and passports for foreigners and the smuggling of fuel from Guatemala to El Salvador, both still unsolved.

Meanwhile, the two main presidential candidates made many promises in the electoral race, which closed Monday.

National Party candidate, stockbreeder and landowner Porfirio Lobo, vowed to fight criminality, create jobs and grant scholarships for students of low income families, among others.

His main rival, Liberal Party´s agriculture businessman Manuel Zelaya, promised to reduce basic product and fuel prices and create 400,000 jobs during his mandate.