In brief
In a closely contested election, Nasry Asfura, supported by Donald Trump, has been declared the winner of Honduras' presidential race with 40.3% of the vote. His rival, Salvador Nasralla, contested the results, raising allegations of vote manipulation and calling for calm among his supporters. Despite the tensions and significant delays in the counting process, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio emphasized the importance of respecting the results for a peaceful transition.
Nasry Asfura has been declared the winner of Honduras' razor-thin presidential election, after weeks of delays following technical problems and allegations of fraud. The conservative National Party candidate - backed by US President Donald Trump - won with 40.3% of the vote, according to the National Electoral Council (CNE), edging out Salvador Nasralla of the centre-right Liberal Party, who got 39.5%. In a post on X, Asfura said: Honduras: I am ready to govern. I will not let you down. Meanwhile, Nasralla said at a press conference: I will not accept a result built on omissions. But he also urged his supporters to remain calm.US Secretary of State Marco Rubio urged all parties to respect the result so that Honduran authorities may ensure a peaceful transition of authority. But the president of the country's Congress, Luis Redondo, posted saying the result was completely illegal. The vote was held on 30 November but the count was delayed twice by technical outages, which electoral officials called inexcusable. The president of the CNE, Ana Paola Hall, blamed the private company tasked with tabulating the results for the delay, stating the firm had performed maintenance without warning or checking with the CNE.The stoppage came a day after the portal displaying real-time results had crashed. Results of the election were tight and, due to the tumultuous nature of the processing system, around 15% of the tally sheets had to be counted by hand for the winner to be decided. There have been tensions in Honduras as a result of the delays with protests held across the country last week. Thousands of supporters of the governing Libre party demonstrated in the capital Tegucigalpa over what they considered fraud in the vote. The outgoing President, Xiomara Castro, had alleged that an electoral coup was taking place and had said the election was marred by interference from Trump. When Trump endorsed Asfura for president, he mentioned there would be hell to pay if Asfura's narrow lead was overturned in the count, along with threats to withdraw US financial support.In a surprising move, Trump also pardoned Juan Orlando Hernández, a member of Asfura's National Party, who was serving a 45-year jail sentence in the US for drug and weapons charges. Castro was barred by the constitution from standing for a second term. Nine days after the vote, Nasralla accused corrupt people of manipulating the vote count. In his statement following the announcement of the result, Rubio said the US would look forward to working with his incoming administration to advance our bilateral and regional security cooperation, emphasizing the goal to end illegal immigration to the US while enhancing economic ties.
