Honduran Candidate Alleges Election Has Been 'Manipulated'
The moderate candidate in Honduras's knife-edge presidential election, Salvador Nasralla, has accused "corrupt people" of tampering with the vote count in the Central American nation.
Over a week after the election, the election authority has yet to announce a winner, but the latest results suggest that Nasry "Tito" Asfura, the conservative candidate endorsed by US President Donald Trump, holds a slim advantage.
Nasralla, who had been ahead in the initial stages before falling to second place, declared on social media: "This is a robbery."
The left-wing candidate trailing in third, Rixi Moncada, has called for the vote to be invalidated and alleged US interference by Trump in the election.
Narrow Results and Growing Unrest
With 98.77% of votes counted, Asfura had just over forty percent of the vote, leading Nasralla with under forty percent and Moncada with just under twenty percent, per the National Electoral Council's (CNE) update.
Patience has worn thin over the last week as the counting was repeatedly halted, sometimes for days on end.
Representatives of the CNE blamed "technical problems."
They have also cautioned that thousands of voting records with "inconsistencies" still need to be reviewed.
Trump's Endorsement and Surprise Pardon
The period preceding the election was dominated by Trump's endorsement of Nasry "Tito" Asfura.
Shortly before the vote, Trump threw his weight behind the former mayor of Tegucigalpa, saying that "Tito and I can work together to fight the drug traffickers."
"We will be very supportive should Asfura win, but we will not be wasting resources, because a poor choice can only bring disastrous outcomes," Trump added.
In a unexpected action two days before the election, Trump also granted clemency to jailed former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández, who is from the same party as Asfura.
Hernández was in the midst of a 45-year prison sentence in the US for conspiring to import cocaine.
His pardon and subsequent release has stunned Honduran authorities, who have issued an international arrest warrant for Hernández, who remains in the US.
Mounting Tensions and Allegations of Interference
Meanwhile, the situation has grown more tense as the lead in the vote count fluctuated repeatedly.
Trump claimed the CNE of "seeking to alter" the outcome when Nasralla overtook Asfura early on.
"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 took the lead, it has been his two rivals alleging misconduct.
Rixi Moncada's Libre party called for the "complete cancellation" of the elections.
It also urged its supporters to protest publicly against what it called "meddling and pressure of the President of the United States."
Nasralla blamed unnamed "bad actors" for "holding up the counting process."
Under Honduran law, the CNE has until 30 December to announce a victor.
