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11/29

Police fired tear gas and water cannons at supporters of deposed President Manuel Zelaya as polling was underway during the Honduran election.

Some Zelaya supporters have sustained wounds in confrontations with the police and many others have been detained.

Reports say the police is using a heavy hand in controlling the hundreds of demonstrators in the northern city of San Pedro Sula who have boycotted Sunday's post-coup presidential election.

The protesters called for Zelaya's return to power. He has been holed up in the Brazilian Embassy in the Honduran capital Tegucigalpa since secretly returning to the country in September.

Zelaya has dismissed the country's presidential election as an “electoral farce” and has criticized the United States for supporting the vote.

The country's de facto leaders hope the election will turn a page on the country's five-month crisis, sparked by a June 28 coup. But the military clampdown, led by Roberto Micheletti, has been severely criticized by human rights groups.

The two leading candidates, Porfirio Lobo and Elvin Santos, two prosperous businessmen from the political old guard, are from right-wing parties that have traded the leadership of Honduras for years and have close ties to the military.

Hondurans remain bitterly divided by the coup, which was the first in Central America for more than 20 years.

FTP/HGL