Honduras faces a stark choice in Sunday's election between a tough militarized response to drug gang violence fuelling the world's highest murder rate, and a swing to the left that could revive the political career of deposed leader Manuel Zelaya.
No clear winner has emerged in a photo-finish finale that pits the ruling National Party's candidate, Juan Hernandez, who is head of Congress and considered to be Honduras' most powerful politician, against Zelaya's wife, Xiomara Castro.
Both candidates offer distinct visions for the future of the violent Central American country, which is the region's top coffee exporter. How to tame drug gangs is a key focus of the vote.
"We can't bear the violence any more," said 61-year-old widower Gloria Zuniga as she waited in line to vote in a school yard-turned polling station in the capital Tegucigalpa, shortly after voting began.
"This has to radically change. We can't leave our houses to walk freely in the street," added Zuniga, who suffers from hypertension and walks with a stick.
The atmosphere at the polling station was calm, with very little visible security presence.
Castro promises to "refound" Honduras and level the playing field in a starkly inequitable society, where nearly half the population earns less than a dollar a day, sparking fears among the upper classes of expropriations and land grabs.
Hernandez' willingness to "do whatever it takes to bring peace and tranquility to the country," employing the army alongside a newly formed military police force to tame drug gangs, concerns others who fear rights abuses and corruption.
"I believe that whoever gets involved in crime, should be put in their place by the state," Hernandez said on Friday. "Simple."
The left-leaning Castro, running for the Liberty and Refoundation Party, or LIBRE - a coalition of leftist politicians, unions and indigenous groups founded by Zelaya - would create a community police force and scale back the army's involvement.
She also says she would rewrite the constitution, which risks antagonising the country's business elite and those behind the ouster of Zelaya in 2009 after he made similar overtures.
Both will struggle, however, to put Honduras' fragile economy in order, clean up a corrupt police force and bring down the murder rate. Despite their distinct views, few experts believe they will make much headway.
"The problems are so profound it's hard to be terribly optimistic that no matter who wins, things will improve in the short term," said Michael Shifter, head of the Inter-American Dialogue. "They're up against tremendous odds."
Many privately expect Hernandez - who appears to be everywhere, grinning from posters on sidewalks and giving handouts to the poor on television - to win. Castro, however, has seemed strangely absent in the capital, with few campaign posters visible and little media presence.
With both candidates statistically tied in the last poll before the election, and both claiming more than 10-point leads in their own surveys, any tight result with the faintest whiff of fraud could spark violence.
LIBRE has alleged pro-Hernandez bias in the election tribunal, and it is unclear whether Castro can control her loosely affiliated coalition if she loses, with top party officials already hinting at protests.
Questions also remain about whether those behind the 2009 coup could stomach Zelaya back in the presidential palace, particularly given his wife's incendiary yet vague talk about redrafting the constitution and the commonly held view that he is the one calling the shots.
But with no clear majority in Congress, the eventual winner will have to make concessions with lawmakers in a move that should fend off a repeat coup.
Irrespective of who wins, more than a century of two-party control has crumbled during the election, with LIBRE's emergence having broadened the mainstream. A more plural Honduran political landscape will be the legacy of the vote.
Still, a more democratic Honduras is not necessarily a safer or richer Honduras. With nearly a million new people - or just under 20 percent of the electorate - eligible to vote since the last election in 2010, young Hondurans may prove key.
Waiting for his wife to finish her shift as a store assistant at a shopping center, 27-year-old Isaac Lopez was despondent.
His paycheck stunted, and with various family members targeted by the drug gangs and their "war tax," which even men selling chewing gum on the street must pay, he doubted any of the candidates could forge a fairer, less violent society.
"It's a group that has always had the whole country subjugated," he said of Honduras' elite. "Everything they can hold in their hands, they hoard. Whatever falls through their fingers is what's left for the poor."
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