The Honduran police have promised on Tuesday to investigate the murder of a gay rights activist who also was amongst protesters that rallied in the June coup that toppled President Manuel Zelaya.

The anti-coup National Resistance Front said gunmen in a vehicle had shot at and wounded Walter Trochez on Sunday as he was walking in Tegucigalpa. Trochez was taken to a hospital by friends that were near by but could not be saved.

“Trochez was an active militant in the resistance and an example of the fight against the dictatorship,” the group said in a statement released on the day the victim was buried.

The front, which until recently staged daily protests to demand Zelaya’s restoration to the presidency, blamed the attack “on the repressive forces that the oligarchy uses to stop the demands of the Honduran people for liberty and democracy.”

Police spokesman Orlin Cerrato said the case was “being exhaustively investigated.” He named no suspects but dismissed the possibility that police were involved.

Wealthy rancher Porfirio Lobo declared victory after election results showed a broad lead for the candidate from the opposition National Party.

Porfirio Lobo has won the presidential election in Honduras, with about 56 percent of ballots cast. Election officials say voter turnout was high, in spite of a call by ousted President Manuel Zelaya to boycott the poll.

Wealthy rancher Porfirio Lobo declared victory after election results showed a broad lead for the candidate from the opposition National Party. The outcome was a vindication for Porfirio Lobo, who narrowly lost to ousted President Manuel Zelaya in the 2005 vote.

Speaking at a rally late Sunday, Porfirio Lobo told supporters he will work to improve security, create new jobs and restore international ties.

Lobo says he hopes to bring about profound changes that will enable Honduras to return to the place it was four years ago, before Mr. Zelaya took office.

Election officials said about 62 percent of voters took part in the vote, which eclipsed turnout figures from the 2005 election. The official numbers contradicted earlier claims from Mr. Zelaya, who said his supporters estimated that less than half of registered voters took part.

The ousted leader called on voters to boycott the election, saying the de facto government is illegitimate. Since October, Mr. Zelaya has been living inside the Brazilian embassy as Honduran officials seek to arrest him on charges of abuse of power and treason.

The National Front against the Coup d’Etat leader Luis Gradis Espinal’s corpse was found on Tuesday after he was arrested by the police, human rights authorities denounced.

Reports by the Front said 56-year-old Luis Gradis Espinal, retired teacher, had left on Sunday southern Valle department for the capital, and his whereabouts had been unknown since then.

A witness said the vehicle in which she was travelling with Luis Gradis Espinal was stopped at the city’s Beltway by a police patrol and the teacher was arrested and also beaten with a pistol in his head.

The Detainees and Missing People’s Relatives’ Committee (CAFADEH) reported that Espinal’s corpse was found in Las Casitas sector, in the capital’s western area.

In a communique, the National Front warned that the repressive corpses have increased security and persecution of the resistance members.

The organization highlighted that this policy has come “to the point of declaring a state of emergency that could be a preliminary to a military offensive against unarmed people.”

That alliance of people forces reiterated a call to ignore actively the elections, which it considers a complete sham to legitimize the military coup that removed President Manuel Zelaya from office on June 28.

Now, with Zelaya still holed up in the Brazilian Embassy, voters will choose a new president this Sunday from the political establishment that has dominated Honduras for decades. No one is pushing the leftist agenda of the ousted leader, who said he was trying to lift a country where seven in 10 people are poor.

“It’s a risk-averse culture,” said Manuel Orozco, a Central America expert with the Washington-based Inter-American Dialogue.

The months of turmoil as Zelaya pressed for his reinstatement, the negotiation and U.S. shuttle diplomacy are about to be overtaken by business as usual – Honduran style.

Even many of the poor who supported Zelaya as he aligned himself with Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and Latin America’s new left say they will vote for conservative front-runner Porfirio Lobo, a 61-year-old wealthy businessman who is ahead by double digits in the polls.

“I will vote for the one who can fix this and give us work right now, because those suffering are the poor,” said Reina Gomez, 53, a single mother who washes clothes for a living and who supported Zelaya in 2005.

Zelaya was prohibited by the constitution from running for more than one term – even before the military whisked him out of the country at gunpoint in the June 28 coup. His opponents said he wanted to follow in Chavez’s footsteps and revise the constitution to extend his time in office. Zelaya denies any such intention.

Honduras has always been run by a handful of families who control the news media, economy and every power sphere from the military to the Supreme Court. It remains one of the Western Hemisphere’s poorest nations, where gaunt workers in torn shoes survive on $250 a month.