Hondurans went to the polls amid tight security to pick a new president for their Central American nation, the world's deadliest and among the region's poorest.
The election which was held yesterday pits Xiomara Castro, leftist wife of ousted former leader Manuel Zelaya, against conservative Juan Orlando Hernandez.
Some 5,400 polling stations opened at 1300 GMT with a ceremony at a school in the capital Tegucigalpa, where electoral tribunal chief David Matamoros expressed hope the vote would "heal the wounds" of the 2009 coup d'etat that toppled Zelaya.
He also urged the 5.4 million voters to carry out their electoral duty with "faith, dignity and civility."
The candidates are vying to succeed President Porfirio Lobo, who was elected after the coup in a controversial election boycotted by Zelaya's leftist allies.
The heavily guarded polling stations, to which some 800 foreign election monitors have been dispatched, close at 2300 GMT after a one-hour extension was agreed.
Castro, with the Libre Party, could become the first female president of Honduras, the poorest country in the Americas after Haiti. An estimated 71 percent of the population lives in poverty.
"The people have decided, and the people want change," she said after voting in Catacamas. "A new era has started for all Hondurans," Castro said.
Her main rival, National Congress President Hernandez, is a supporter of the 2009 coup and a law-and-order conservative who has vowed to bring order by flooding the streets with soldiers.
The message from the ruling National Party candidate has resonance in this country of 8.5 million that records 20 murders a day -- the highest in the world, according to UN figures.
"I am happy, joyful that the Honduran people are voting peacefully... United to take our country forward," said Hernandez, 45.
He spoke surrounded by supporters, after voting in Gracias, some 300 kilometers from the capital.
Government institutions are so weak and the police so corrupt that Honduras is on the brink of becoming a failed state.
