WHEN Juan Orlando Hernández (pictured), the winner of Honduras’s presidential election of November 24th, was involved in a minor helicopter crash eight days before, he clambered out, fell to his knees and thanked God for saving his life. Since then, the 45-year-old right-winger who grew up in a rural family of 17 children has done his best to show that he is the chosen one. “The voice of the people is God’s voice,” he claimed, defending a victory his main opponent disputed.

Mr Hernández, who is reputed to be an adept political operator, badly needs a deus ex machina to help him when he is formally declared president-elect of a country that had the world’s highest murder rate last year (about 20 Hondurans are killed each day). The election marked the fragmentation of what was a stable two-party system, in which Mr Hernández’s conservative National Party alternated in power with the slightly less conservative Liberals. That cosy arrangement began to crack in 2009 when Manuel Zelaya, a Liberal who had embraced Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez, was overthrown in a coup.

With 80% of the count complete, Mr Hernández had won only 36% of the vote, well short of the clear majorities achieved by past presidents. Though the electoral tribunal declared him the winner, Xiomara Castro, the wife of Mr Zelaya, who won 29% under the banner of a new left-wing party, was refusing to recognise Mr Hernández’s victory. The couple called on her supporters to take to the streets to protest “fraud”. (As yet, they have only come out in dribs and drabs.) The Liberals were pushed into third, with about 20%. It is not clear which, if any, of the opposition forces might join a pact that Mr Hernández hopes to forge to overcome his party’s minority in the 128-seat Congress.

Despite these impending difficulties in what is one of Latin America’s poorest countries, some outsiders put a positive spin on the election. An American official said a higher turnout (about 60%) showed Hondurans’ faith in democracy, which was “a beautiful thing”. Feared post-electoral unrest, which prompted some panic-buying in supermarkets before the election, did not materialise. Despite the claims of fraud, observers from the European Union said the result tallied closely with exit polls. “I’m basically optimistic that with the new government there’s a new start,” the American official said.

Mr Hernández has pledged to make that start straight away. He hopes to renew a standby facility with the IMF within six months. International finance officials say that to do so he needs to cut a budget deficit that is expected to reach 7% this year, by raising electricity tariffs and eliminating hundreds of VAT exemptions. Since the new legislature will be splintered, the National Party may try to ram these unpopular measures through the outgoing Congress, in which it has a majority.

Damming the flood of red ink is vital if the next government is to find the money for what most Hondurans think should be its top priority: tackling violent crime. At polling stations, voter after voter complained of the collapse in law and order, especially what a young engineer, Juan Roberto Antúnez, called a “war tax”—the charging of protection money by gang members who kill those who don’t pay.

Analysts say one of the reasons Mr Hernández eventually overcame Ms Castro’s early lead in the opinion polls was his promise to do “whatever it takes” to improve law and order. The creation this year of a 2,000-strong military police, which he says he will increase to 5,000, appears to have gone down well with voters, though the shape and scope of that force is still unclear. Ms Castro was the only candidate to favour civilian policing.

Oscar Álvarez, Mr Hernández’s campaign manager who hints that he may lead a new super-ministry in charge of both the police and the army, says the mano dura (“iron fist”) approach will be leavened with crime-prevention measures aimed at discouraging youths from joining gangs, with money from the United States and know-how from Colombia. Mr Hernández insists only drug traffickers need fear the military police (though this claim rang hollow when dozens of them were deployed to deter Ms Castro’s supporters the day after the election).

In the past four years mano dura from the National Party has failed to rein in organised crime and drug-trafficking. According to the EU observers, the party vastly outspent its rivals in the campaign. It is not clear where the extra money came from. As well as calming a divided country, Mr Hernández will have to ensure that his own house is clean too.