Electoral count in Honduras resumes amid fraud accusations, boycott
Electoral authority continues final tally in one of the most hotly contested races in country’s history
MEXICO CITY
After more than 25 hours, the final count of Honduras’ electoral results resumed on Tuesday, and the National Electoral Council (CNE) urged patience.
Since the Nov. 30 national elections, the CNE has left the Honduran public in uncertainty as the two main opposition candidates challenge each other for the presidency.
Minutes after the count resumed, Liberal Party candidate Salvador Nasralla led with 815,261 votes, ahead of conservative candidate Nasry Asfura – the favorite of President Donald Trump – who had 808,737 votes.
The race between the two opposition candidates has eclipsed the campaign of Rixi Moncada, the ruling Libre Party’s candidate and the political successor to President Xiomara Castro. Moncada has secured only 19% of the vote, or 389,842 ballots.
After the CNE system displaying preliminary results went down, uncertainty deepened as both sides of the political spectrum issued accusations of fraud and sabotage.
On social media, Moncada alleged that her opposition and the CNE were attempting to commit fraud, citing supposed audio recordings in which CNE officials and political opponents were heard openly discussing manipulating the election results.
“Bipartisanship imposed an electoral plot on us, following the scheme revealed in the 26 audio recordings, tampering with the Preliminary Results Transmission system (TREP) and the biometric data,” Moncada wrote on US social media company X.
The ruling-party candidate also denounced what she called “interference” by Trump, who openly expressed support for Asfura and promised aid to Honduras if he were to win. Moncada condemned the gesture as “unprecedented” and a form of “coercion” of the popular vote.
Meanwhile, CNE chief Cossette Lopez Osorio denounced what she described as an attempted “boycott” by the ruling-party supporters of a press conference scheduled for Tuesday afternoon to provide an update on the vote count. According to Osorio, members of the Libre Party attempted to “prevent the public appearance.”
“Alert, Honduran people,” she wrote.
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