Tegucigalpa: Soldiers and police on Monday moved to clear roads across Honduras of demonstrators protesting alleged fraud in a presidential election held two weeks ago, which they said was won by leftist opposition candidate Salvador Nasralla.

The action was taken as the country is stuck in a political impasse and amid unrest after President Juan Orlando Hernandez claimed victory in the November 26 poll.

Electoral authorities have not yet declared a winner from the election, despite full results and a partial recount showing a slight lead for Hernandez, 49.

International observers have expressed reservations with “irregularities” in the election, while Amnesty International has slammed “dangerous and illegal” tactics to silence anti-Hernandez dissent.

Initial results pointed to a victory for Nasralla, a 64-year-old former TV presenter with little political experience. But a much-interrupted and extraordinarily slow count by the Supreme Electoral Tribunal then reversed the trend to suggest an advantage for Hernandez. Nasralla told a news conference on Monday that the opposition had proof of ballot fraud, saying that votes from around a third of polling stations were meddled with.

He reiterated that all ballots from the vote needed to be recounted, under the supervision of foreign observers.

The Supreme Electoral Tribunal has counted ballots from around a quarter of the country’s polling stations and said the results were “consistent” with the initial tally putting Hernandez slightly ahead.

Security forces extinguished burning tires that had been set up across roads in the capital by protesters backing Nasralla’s Alliance Against the Dictatorship coalition.

Agence France-Presse