Tens of thousands of people marched against the re-election of US-backed President Juan Orlando Hernandez, demanding that his rival be recognised as the real winner of the November presidential race.
Supporters of the Opposition Alliance Against the Dictatorship rallied and marched in the streets of San Pedro Sula, the country’s second-largest city, calling for Salvador Nasralla, 64, to be named the winner and sworn in this month.
“The people are not going to put up with this imposition, so that the dictator can stay on,” Nasralla, a former TV host, said of conservative Hernandez outside the city’s colonial-era cathedral.
“We’re not going to stop until we get the corrupt out of power,” Nasralla stressed.
Marchers walked about 2km waving banners bearing slogans including “Electoral Fraud Shall Not Stand,” “No more political killings,” and “Freedom for Political Prisoners,” demanding that Hernandez, 49, step aside.
Many of them sang and chanted “JOH (Hernandez), OUT is where you are headed.”
Marchers also called for a national strike, including a boycott of Hernandez’s inauguration and road blocks around the impoverished Central American nation.
“We are headed to a national strike,” said opposition leader Manuel Zelaya, an elected leftist who back in 2009 was ousted himself from the presidency.
Without giving dates, Zelaya said civil disobedience would be the new strategy. Demonstrators plan to mount roadblocks on major avenues and highways, and at ports and airports, “so that the will of the people is respected,” he said.
Zelaya said demonstrators rejected the idea that the vote be redone, a suggestion from the secretary general Luis Almagro of the Organisation of American States. “I don’t believe what the OAS says, but if it is to come watch Nasralla take office, that will do,” Zelaya said.
“I don’t believe the US  either. But if it’s coming to watch Salvador Nasralla take office, that will do too.”