Honduras: Left Opposition Picks Presidential Election Candidate

A broad leftist alliance of Honduran opposition parties picked a prominent television show host as presidential candidate on Sunday, creating a new hurdle for President Juan Orlando Hernandez as he seeks to retain power in the November election.

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Calling itself the Opposition Alliance Against the Dictatorship, the coalition chose television star Salvador Nasralla to try to stop Hernandez from securing another four-year term in the violent, impoverished Central America nation.

"Today we're an unstoppable force, no more drugs, no more violence, nor influence-trafficking from the government," Nasralla said, dressed in a white suit and yellow shirt before a crowd of supporters waving red and white flags.

The alliance encompasses the leftist Liberty and Refoundation Party, LIBRE, of ousted ex-President Manuel Zelaya, Nasralla's centrist Anti-Corruption Party, PAC, and other groups, including a dissident from Hernandez's center-right National Party.

Zelaya's wife, former presidential candidate Xiomara Castro, will serve as Nasralla's running mate in the alliance.

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However, a recent ruling of electoral authorities declared his candidacy illegal, arguing that he did not participate in the primary elections within his own party on April 10. Marlene Alvarenga, the only candidate in the primaries then, demanded that Nasralla not use the PAC logo for his campaign.

Mainstream media in Honduras has slated Hernandez as the favorite to win the election, though he was well short of an outright majority in an opinion poll published on Tuesday that gave him 36 percent support among voters.

The same poll saw Castro with 12 percent support and Nasralla with 11 percent, suggesting their ticket could prove the biggest challenge to Hernandez's bid to hold on to his job.

Nasralla, an industrial engineer and business administrator, whose long television career has extended from beauty pageants to sports journalism, finished fourth in the 2013 presidential race.