THOUSANDS protested in Honduras’s second city San Pedro Sula yesterday to demand the annulment of November’s disputed election result.

The march through the city was in support of Opposition Alliance Against the Dictatorship party candidate Salvador Nasralla’s claim that he was cheated of victory by the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE).

The TSE declared incumbent President Juan Orlando Hernandez of the National Party the winner by a narrow margin last month.

Calling Mr Hernandez by his initials, demonstrators chanted: “JOH, out is where you are headed” and waved banners reading: “Electoral fraud shall not stand,” “no more political killings” and “freedom for political prisoners.”

At least 17 people have been killed in protests since the election, prompting police, including the feared Cobras paramilitary unit, to go on strike rather than oppress their compatriots.

“We will not stop until Hernandez says he’s leaving,” Mr Nasralla told supporters.

“The people are not going to put up with this imposition so that the dictator can stay on,” he added. “We’re not going to stop until we get the corrupt out of power.”

The TSE was accused of fraud after halting the vote count the day after the November 26 election, when Mr Nasralla held a five-point lead with more than half the ballots tallied.

It resumed at a painstakingly slow pace two days later, recounting more than a thousand ballot boxes and gradually reversing the opposition candidate’s lead.

Even the Washington-based Organisation of American States, which sent election observers, has called for a rerun of the vote, citing the “extreme statistical improbability” of the official result.