TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras -- Hondurans elect a new president on Sunday in
                 a race that comes down to populist versus reformist rhetoric.

                 The murder of a congressional candidate from Honduras' main opposition party
                 early on Saturday underscored a violent crime wave plaguing the Central American
                 nation of 6.3 million people and casts a pall over its sixth election since nearly 20
                 years of military rule ended in 1982.

                 Business executive and former central bank chief Ricardo Maduro, 55, of the
                 opposition National Party, was expected by most polls to beat his nearest rival,
                 school teacher and Congress President Rafael Pineda Ponce, 71, of the ruling
                 Liberal Party.

                 Three other parties, including those of former rebel organisations, were expected to
                 net about four percent of the vote between them.

                 Hondurans living in the United States are eligible to vote at special booths set up in
                 New York, Miami and Los Angeles.

                 Observers from the Organization of American States were to oversee the election,
                 in which voters will also elect 128 Congress members and 298 mayors, but no
                 major irregularities were expected.

                 Maduro, an entrepreneur, has made the war on crime his personal crusade and
                 vowed "zero tolerance" for criminals. His son was murdered in a failed kidnap
                 attempt in 1997.

                 Professor Pineda has focused on education, painting himself as the austere principal
                 of Honduras' "big classroom."

                 But Hondurans remain to be convinced by the contenders' words.

                 "I still don't know if I'm going to vot e. The politicians just make promises and
                 don't keep them. They only think of their own pockets and not of the poor," said
                 Pedro Abarca, 36, a security guard in the capital.

                 Some 70 percent of Hondurans live in poverty in this agricultural nation whose
                 main foreign exchange earners are coffee, banana and shrimp exports, the
                 export-assembly, industry and remittances -- $410 million in 2000 -- sent home by
                 about 300,000 Hondurans living in the United States.

                 Maduro promised to overhaul the judicial, electoral and political systems, reform the
                 police, reduce corruption and open up the utilities sector.

                 Pineda has resisted moves to open up the electricity sector and recently
                 spearheaded the creation of a popular bank to give low-interest loans to small
                 business.

                 Despite the rhetoric, however, whoever wins will have limited room to fund grand
                 projects for change because the nation is tied by a series of deals with global
                 lenders to major structural reforms.

                 Honduras has about $4.08 billion in external debt and expects to spend more than
                 one fifth of its gross domestic product this year servicing that.

                 The nation was pulverised by Hurricane Mitch in 1998, which killed up to 13,000
                 people, destroyed farmland and inflicted $5 billion in property damage.

                 As Honduras was getting back on its feet, it was hit by a crippling drought this year
                 and a tropical storm. A collapse in world coffee prices and a sharp economic
                 downturn in the United States -- its main trading partner -- have aggravated the
                 nation's woes.

                 With the economy faltering, maras, or street gangs, have proliferated, as have the
                 numbers of murders, kidnappings, bank robberies and street assaults.

                 "I hope the new government ends crime because now you can't even leave your
                 house any more," said Reina Ortiz, 32, who sells sweets and cigarettes in the main
                 plaza.

                 On the eve of the election, congressional candidate Angel Pacheco, 44, from the
                 opposition National Party, was shot seven times by a man waiting outside his home
                 south of the capital of Tegucigalpa.

                 Police said the murder appeared to be politically motivated.

                    Copyright 2001 Reuters.