Honduras Letter: White clenched fists fill the air. "Pepe Presidente, Pepe Presidente!" shouts a euphoric crowd over booming salsa music. Girls in bikinis dance on stage. Suddenly the music stops. Holding a giant inflatable fist, a man appears on the stage. The football stadium in the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa, is rocked by a deafening cheer.
The man is Porfiro Sosa Lobos, or Pepe as he is more commonly known, the governing National Party's candidate in the general election on November 27th.
He is also a man with a mission - to win the presidency and turn Honduras back to the time of General Carías, a dictator who ruled with an iron fist from 1934 to 1949.
It was a time of terror and repression in Honduras, yet it is also remembered as a time of relative prosperity and security, unlike the wave of unemployment and violence which currently characterises the nation.
Worn down by poverty and hopelessness, hundreds of Hondurans set out on the perilous journey over the US border each month in the hope of finding a better life, and many thousands of Honduran young feel they have little option but to join one of the youth gangs which thrive on drugs, organised crime, killing and extortion.
In fact, Pepe's election campaign is based on the fight against these gangs. He proposes to introduce even stricter security legislation than the current government, which introduced an "anti-gang law" many claim violates fundamental human rights.
He is the Bush administration's favoured candidate and many fear that if he does succeed in the elections, he will try to change the Honduran constitution, which allows only one presidential term, to ensure he can continue to rule.
In a stadium a thousand miles across the country, however, he is taunted by his Liberal Party rival, Manual Zelaya, known as Mel. "What's all this about iron fists?" he shouts. "The last four years of National Party rule have seen nothing but an increase in violence, unemployment and exclusion. Their anti-gang policies have only generated more unrest and citizen insecurity."
Mel promises to introduce social and economic change and promises a firm hand against violence. And yet, with only a few days to go before the elections, the two candidates are running neck to neck.
In a country where sectarianism and fanaticism have dominated politics for decades, these elections promise to be historic. There are three other parties, including an established left-wing party, the Democratic Union; however, their campaigns have always been overshadowed by the dominating Liberal and National parties. Over the years the differences between the two parties have blurred - the latter once had some leftist tendencies but today the parties have almost become indistinguishable, with both representing the interests of the business elite.
Nonetheless Hondurans have habitually voted not on politics or policy but family tradition. Their great-great-grandfather voted for the Liberal Party and so they do too.
This has led to political apathy. In the last elections, almost two million voters abstained while the current National Party government, under President Maduro, won by just over one million votes.
If there had not been so many abstainers, many say he would not have won.
And so in the past few years there has been a huge initiative by civil society organisations to encourage citizen participation in the elections.
Earlier in the year a new electoral law was introduced, which may lead to some surprising results. In past elections, voters elected only the president and local mayor. This time they will also vote for their local member of congress, and crossover votes are permitted.
So while either Mel or Pepe are sure to win the presidency, they may find themselves confronting a more diverse congress.
"Honduras is beginning to mature politically," says Edguardo Chevez of the Christian Organization for the Integral Development of Honduras. "Voters are learning to choose instead of just voting."
While it will take a long time to break the family traditions and bi-partisan politics, many hope these elections will bring about the first seeds of change.