The agonizing vote count enters its final stretch with a result that is still very close, but that gives a slight advantage to the conservative candidate, supported by Donald Trump and who achieved 40.21% of the votes. He is closely followed by the liberal candidate, Salvador Nasralla, with 39.48% of the vote, according to the most recent scrutiny of the National Electoral Council (CNE), which has already processed 86.54% of the votes. Asfura has asked his followers for “serenity” and to wait for the final count, while Nasralla has denounced that it could affect his chances of victory.
It is the third time that Nasralla, of the Liberal Party, aspires to the Honduran presidency. The politician, a well-known face in the Central American country because he was a television presenter, had led the count for one day, but was overtaken by his opponent, a candidate from the conservative Liberal Party, with a difference of 20,450 votes. Electoral authorities have reported on Friday that they will only name a winner when the total counting of the ballots is completed. The law gives the CNE up to 30 days to define a winner of the election.
Nasralla has acknowledged in statements to Reuters that it could affect his victory. “It hurt me, because I was winning by much more difference,” said the candidate. Trump burst in days before the vote with his support for Asfura and called both Nasralla and the ruling party’s candidate, Rixi Moncada, of the Libre party, communists, who has barely achieved just over 19% of the support. Days later, Trump, who had been sentenced to 45 years in prison in the United States for his ties to drug trafficking. After learning the most recent results of the CNE, Nasralla has denounced “attempts at fraud” and has accused the electoral authorities of engineering a defeat against him, as, he stated, occurred in the 2013 and 2017 elections. However, he has called on his supporters to closely follow the count. “The data we have is firm and puts us ahead by a significant margin. Have confidence, the final result will favor us. We just have to wait,” he said.
Reports of fraud have also come from the ruling party. , a CNE advisor who represents Libre, said that “a coup” and “electoral fraud” have been plotted against the candidate Moncada. Ochoa reported in a press conference that 86.6% of the minutes show “errors and inconsistencies” in their contents, in addition to denouncing “serious” structural failures, such as the slowness in the transmission of the results of the minutes, adulteration of the vote numbers during the election night while they were transmitted by the so-called TREP, a system for transmitting preliminary results. “They are not isolated events, but rather they are part of a coordinated operation between internal forces of the bipartisan leadership.” [en referencia a Partido Nacional y al Liberal, que han dominado la escena política hondureña] and an allied foreign interference that is imposing an electoral decision,” he stated.
Asfura, Trump’s standard-bearer, has asked his supporters to calm down and wait for the end of the recount. “The people have demonstrated civility, love for democracy and commitment to freedom,” he said Friday. “I will not go out and say inconsistencies or fuel uncertainty. The stability of the country is above any personal ambition. I ask for serenity, it is a matter of time,” he stated.
