Honduran Candidate Alleges Election Has Been 'Stolen'
The moderate candidate in Honduras's knife-edge presidential election, Salvador Nasralla, has alleged "corrupt people" of tampering with the vote count in the Central American nation.
Nine days after the election, the election authority has still not declared a winner, but the latest results suggest that Nasry "Tito" Asfura, the conservative candidate backed by US President Donald Trump, holds a slim advantage.
Nasralla, who had been ahead in the initial stages before dropping into second place, declared on social media: "This is a robbery."
The progressive hopeful trailing in third, Rixi Moncada, has called for the vote to be annulled and accused Trump of the election.
Narrow Results and Growing Frustration
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, according to the National Electoral Council's (CNE) update.
Frustration has been growing over the last week as the counting stalled several times, sometimes for days on end.
Officials from the CNE blamed "IT issues."
They have also cautioned that numerous voting records with "discrepancies" still need to be examined.
Trump's Backing and Surprise Pardon
The period preceding the election was overshadowed by Trump's endorsement of Nasry "Tito" Asfura.
Shortly before the vote, Trump backed the former mayor of Tegucigalpa, stating that "Tito and I can work together to fight the Narcocommunists."
"We will be very supportive should Asfura win, but we will not be throwing good money after bad, because a poor choice can only bring disastrous outcomes," Trump added.
In a surprise move two days before the election, Trump also granted clemency to jailed former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández, who stems from the same party as Asfura.
Hernández was in the midst of a 45-year prison sentence in the US for trafficking cocaine.
His clemency and freedom has stunned Honduran authorities, who have issued an international arrest warrant for Hernández, who remains in the US.
Mounting Tensions and Allegations of Interference
At the same time, the situation has grown more tense as the lead in the vote count changed a number of times.
Trump claimed the CNE of "trying to change" the outcome when Nasralla pulled past Asfura early on.
"If they do, there will be hell to pay," the US president said without providing evidence of any fraud.
Since the moment the Trump-endorsed Asfura moved in 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 take to the streets against what it called "meddling and pressure of the President of the United States."
Nasralla blamed unnamed "bad actors" for "delaying the counting process."
Under Honduran law, the CNE has until 30 December to announce a victor.