The centrist candidate in Honduras’s knife-edge presidential election, Salvador Nasralla, has accused “corrupt people” of manipulating the vote count in the Central American nation.
Nine days after the election, the electoral council has still not declared a winner but the latest results suggest that Nasry “Tito” Asfura, the conservative candidate backed by US President Donald Trump, has a narrow lead.
Nasralla, who had been leading earlier on in the count before dropping into second place, declared on social media: “This is theft.”
The left-wing candidate who is trailing in third place, Rixi Moncada, has called for the vote to be annulled and accused Trump of interfering in the election.
With 98.77% of votes counted, Asfura had 40.53% of the vote, ahead of Nasralla with 39.16% and Moncada with 19.32%, according to the National Electoral Council’s (CNE) update at 03:00 GMT on Tuesday.
Frustration has been growing over the last week as the counting stalled several times, sometimes for days on end.
Officials from the CNE blamed “technical problems” for the delays.
They have also warned that thousands of voting records with “inconsistencies” still need to be reviewed.
The run-up to the election was dominated by Trump’s endorsement of Nasry “Tito” Asfura.
Just days before the vote, Trump backed the former mayor of Tegucigalpa saying that “Tito and I can work together to fight the Narcocommunists”.
In an apparent reference to US aid to Honduras, Trump added that “we will be very supportive” should Asfura win, but that “the United States will not be throwing good money after bad, because a wrong Leader can only bring catastrophic results”.
In a surprise move two days before the 30 November election, Trump also pardoned jailed former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández, who stems from the same party as Asfura.
Hernández was serving a 45-year prison sentence in the US for conspiring to import cocaine into US.
His pardon and subsequent release from a US prison has stunned the Honduran authorities, which on Monday issued an international arrest warrant for Hernández, who remains in the US.
Meanwhile, tension has been rising further within Honduras as the lead in the vote count changed a number of times.
Trump accused the CNE of “trying to change” the outcome of the election when Nasralla pulled past Asfura on the first day of counting.
“If they do, there will be hell to pay,” the US president said without providing evidence of any fraud.
Ever since the Trump-endorsed Asfura moved in the lead, it has been his two rivals who have been crying foul.
Rixi Moncada’s Libre party called for the “the total annulment” of the elections.
It also urged its supporters to take to the streets in protest at what it said was “the interference and coercion of the President of the United States, Donald Trump, in the elections in Honduras”.
Nasralla blamed unnamed “corrupt ones” for “holding up the counting process”.
Under Honduran law, the CNE has until 30 December to declare a winner.
By BBC News
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