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Nasry Asfura has been declared the winner of Honduras’s presidential election, after weeks of delays following technical problems and allegations of fraud. <\/p>\n
The conservative National Party candidate – backed by US President Donald Trump – won with 40.3% of the vote, according to the National Electoral Council (CNE), edging out Salvador Nasralla of the centre-right Liberal Party, who got 39.5%. <\/p>\n
In a post on X, Asfura said, “Honduras: I am ready to govern. I will not let you down.” <\/p>\n
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio urged all parties to respect the result “so that Honduran authorities may ensure a peaceful transition of authority”. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n
But the president of the country’s Congress, Luis Redondo, posted saying the result was “completely illegal”.<\/p>\n
The vote was held on 30 November but the count was delayed twice by technical outages, which electoral officials called “inexcusable”.<\/p>\n
The president of the CNE, Ana Paola Hall, blamed the private company tasked with tabulating the results for the delay.<\/p>\n
She said the firm had carried out maintenance without warning or checking with the CNE.<\/p>\n
The stoppage came a day after the portal displaying real-time results had crashed.<\/p>\n
Results of the election were tight and, due to the tumultuous nature of the processing system, around 15% of the tally sheets had to be counted by hand for the winner to be decided. <\/p>\n
There have been tensions in Honduras as a result of the delays with protests held across the country last week. <\/p>\n
Thousands of supporters of the governing Libre party demonstrated in the capital Tegucigalpa over what they considered fraud in the vote. <\/p>\n
The outgoing President, Xiomara Castro, had alleged that an “electoral coup” was taking place and earlier this month said the election was being marred by “interference” from Trump. <\/p>\n
When he endorsed Asfura for president, Trump said there would be “hell to pay” if his very narrow lead was overturned in the count. <\/p>\n
He also threatened to withdraw financial support from the US if Asfura didn’t win.<\/p>\n
In a surprise move, the US president also pardoned Juan Orlando Hernandez, a member of Asfura’s National Party, who was serving 45 year jail sentence in the US on drug and weapons charges. <\/p>\n
Xiomara Castro was barred by the constitution from standing for a second term.<\/p>\n
Nine days after the vote, Nasralla accused “corrupt people” of manipulating the vote count in the Central American nation. He also said Trump’s comments had damaged his chances of winning. <\/p>\n
In his statement following the announcement of the result, Rubio said the US would “look forward to working with his incoming administration to advance our bilateral and regional security co-operation”, adding the two countries would “end illegal immigration to the United States”, while strengthening economic ties. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n