TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — Hondurans on Sunday elected a new president whose first challenge will be defending his legitimacy to the world and ending a crisis over a June coup that has isolated one of Latin America's poorest countries.

Porfirio Lobo and Elvin Santos, two prosperous businessmen from the political old guard, are the front-runners. But their campaigns have been overshadowed by the debate over whether Hondurans should vote at all in an election largely shunned by international monitors.

The debate has split Western Hemisphere countries, and voter turnout could determine how widely the next government is recognized.

The United States, hoping to resolve its first major policy test in Latin America, is defending the election while leftist governments allege it whitewashes Central America's first coup in 20 years.

Washington's support matters most in Honduras, which sends more than 60 per cent of its exports to the United States, from bananas to Fruit-of-the-Loom underwear, and relies heavily on money sent home from the 1 million Hondurans who live in the U.S.

President Barack Obama's government suspended development aid and anti-narcotic co-operation with Honduras over the coup. But U.S. diplomats say Hondurans have the right to choose their next leader in regular elections that were scheduled well before Zelaya's ouster.

Manuel Zelaya, the left-leaning president ousted in a June 28 coup, said that overwhelming abstention would discredit the election and the U.S. would regret its stance.

"Today the people will defeat the dictatorship," Zelaya said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press from the Brazilian Embassy, where he took refuge after sneaking back into the country from his forced exile. "The United States made a mistake. ... If they are democrats in their country, they should be democrats in Latin America."

Police fired tear gas at several hundred pro-Zelaya protesters in the northern city of San Pedro Sula, and at least one person was injured and required stitches on his head. Police spokesman Orlin Cerrato said protests are banned on election day.

Zelaya has support among many poor Hondurans who believed in his promises to shake-up a political system dominated by two political parties with few ideological differences and influenced by a few wealthy families.

Mauro Romero, 59, had no intention of setting foot in a polling station.

"Zelaya is the president that we elected. We don't want the same dinosaurs in power, people who have been there for 30 years, only getting fat," said Romero, sitting on the steps of the Tegucigalpa's peach-colored 18th century cathedral, now covered in graffiti saying "No to the coup!"

But many Hondurans simply want to end a crisis that has eroded an already stagnant economy. Tourists have disappeared from Mayan ruins and rain forests, multilateral lending agencies have blocked the country's access to credit.

Turnout was largest in affluent neighbourhoods where resentment against Zelaya runs highest. Opponents say Zelaya's efforts to change the constitution were a ploy to extend time in power by eliminating presidential term limits, as his ally Hugo Chavez has done in Venezuela.

"We don't want a monarch here who is going to stay here forever in this country," said Rolando Barahona, a business manager. "The crisis is behind us and now we all need to unite and work."

Electoral official Denis Gomez said he thought turnout was robust, although there were no official projections. He said his most optimistic estimate was for a 70 per cent turnout.

However, election workers in the slums of Tegucigalpa said turnout was slow, with some saying only about a third of registered voters had arrived by mid-afternoon.

Human rights activists accuse the interim government harrassing groups promoting abstention. On Saturday, about 50 masked soldiers and police raided the offices of Red Comal, a farm aid group in the northern town of Siguatepeque that has opposed the coup, said Miguel Alonso, the program director. He said police seized computers and documents.

"It's no secret that we are members of the national resistance movement against the coup," Alsonso said. "So the raid order doesn't surprise us."

Cerrato said the security forces were acting on a court order as part investigations into homemade bomb attacks that have exploded nearly every day in Honduras.

Lobo, 61, and Santos, 46, promise to encourage private investment to create jobs while increasing social benefits in a country where 70 per cent of the 7 million people are poor.

The National Party's Lobo, a rancher who lost to Zelaya in 2005 elections, had a double-digit lead in recent polls. He has benefited from divisions within Santos' Liberal Party, which largely turned against Zelaya and supported his ouster.

If elected, Lobo says he will talk with Zelaya and has suggested the deposed leader may be allowed to leave the Brazilian Embassy without fear of arrest. Zelaya faces abuse of power charges for ignoring a Supreme Court order to cancel a referendum on changing the constitution.

Under a U.S.-brokered pact, Congress is set to decide Wednesday whether Zelaya should return head a unity government until his constitutional term ends Jan. 27. Despite its support of the elections, the United States insists it still supports Zelaya's reinstatement.

Zelaya, however, declared the pact dead when Congress delayed the vote on his future until after the elections. He told AP he would not return to the presidency even if Congress votes to restore him.

"It would be accepting the coup d'etat and the electoral farce," he said.