The National Electoral Council of Honduras (CNE), succumbing to pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump, promised on Tuesday to accurately count the votes cast in the presidential election held on November 30, LETA reports citing AFP.
Both right-wing candidates are leading in this election – 67-year-old construction magnate and former mayor of the capital Tegucigalpa, Nasry Asfura, nominated by the right-wing National Party, and 72-year-old television host Salvador Nasralla, representing the centrist Liberal Party. Significantly trailing them is 60-year-old former defense minister Rixi Moncada, supported by the ruling left-wing LIBRE party, who is in a distant third place.
A total of five candidates participated in the election. The winner is the one who receives the most votes; a second round is not provided for.
Trump, who expressed support for Asfura before the election, accused Honduran electoral officials on Monday of trying to "change" the outcome of the vote.
"It seems that Honduras is trying to change the results of its presidential election. If so, they will have to pay dearly!" Trump wrote on his platform Truth Social.
On Monday, the CNE called for "patience" while the vote counting continues. The final tally may take several days or even weeks; however, the CNE reported that according to partial electronic counting, Asfura is ahead of Nasralla by only 515 votes, which means a "technical tie."
On Tuesday, when ballots from more than 60% of polling stations were received, Nasralla emerged in the lead, slightly ahead of Asfura.
The CNE on Tuesday blamed "technical problems" for the prolonged vote counting and stated that it had requested a full report and a "swift" resolution to the issue.
The council also promised to announce the final result within the legally stipulated one-month period and emphasized that "the announcement of results will strictly adhere to the will of the people as expressed in the voting process."
On Tuesday, Nasralla wrote on social media platform X: "We will win!"
"The numbers are in our favor. We are going to protect this victory because it belongs to the people, and no one can take it away," he stated.
It is clear that the ruling left forces have suffered defeat in the elections, and the rightward shift in Honduras will strengthen U.S. influence in a country that has increasingly turned to China in recent years.
In the final days of the campaign, Trump expressed support for Asfura, whose slogan was "Grandpa at your service!" On his platform Truth Social, Trump stated that U.S. support for one of the poorest countries in Latin America would continue if Asfura won.
On the eve of the election, Trump also promised to pardon former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, who was sentenced to 45 years in prison by a U.S. court last year for drug trafficking. Hernandez, who represented the National Party and served as president from 2014 to 2022, was accused of facilitating the smuggling of approximately 400 tons of cocaine into the U.S.
Some residents of Honduras viewed Trump's intervention positively, expressing hope that illegal immigrants from Honduras would be allowed to stay in the U.S., while others opposed his interference in the elections.
Since Trump's return to the White House in January, nearly 30,000 illegal immigrants from Honduras have been deported from the U.S. This has been a severe blow to a country ravaged by drug trafficking and gang wars, where remittances from the U.S. accounted for 27% of GDP last year.
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