TEGUCIGALPA: Honduras´ US -friendly leader looked poised to win a second term as polling stations opened their doors on Sunday, eight years after he supported a coup to remove a previous
President who flirted with reelection.
President Juan Orlando Hernandez, 49, of the center-right National Party, has brought down a sky-high murder rate, accelerated economic growth and cut the deficit since he took office in 2014, and he looks set to profit from a 2015 Supreme Court decision that overturned a constitutional ban on reelection. But critics warn that Hernandez, a staunch US ally on fighting drug gang and migration, is tightening his grip on power, using a pliant Supreme Court and electoral tribunal to clear a path for his reelection bid in one of the Americas´ poorest, most violent countries.
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