Nasry Asfura was declared the winner of Honduras’ razor-thin presidential election after weeks of delays due to technical problems and allegations of fraud.
According to the U.S. National Election Commission (CNE), the conservative People’s Party candidate supported by U.S. President Donald Trump won with 40.3% of the vote, beating Salvador Nasrallah (39.5%) of the center-right Liberty Party.
“Honduras: I am ready to rule. I will not let you down,” Asfura wrote in a post on X.
Meanwhile, Nasrallah told a press conference: “I will not accept results based on omissions.” But he also urged his supporters to remain calm.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio urged all parties to respect the outcome “so Honduran authorities can ensure a peaceful transfer of power.”
But Council President Luis Redondo posted that the results were “completely illegal.”
Voting took place on November 30, but the counting was delayed twice due to technical outages that election officials called “inexcusable.”
CNE president Ana Paola Hall blamed the delay on the private company tasked with tabulating the results.
She said the company carried out maintenance without alerting or checking with CNE.
The outage comes a day after the portal that displays real-time results went down.
The election results were tight and the confusing nature of the processing system meant that about 15% of the tally sheets had to be counted manually to determine the winner.
There was tension in Honduras last week as protests dragged on across the country.
Thousands of supporters of the ruling Liberty Party protested in the capital, Tegucigalpa, against what they viewed as fraud in the vote.
Outgoing President Xiomara Castro has claimed an “electoral coup” is taking place and said earlier this month that the election had been undermined by Trump’s “interference.”
When Trump endorsed Aspura for president, he said he would “pay a helluva price” if his razor-thin margin was overturned in the vote count.
He also threatened to withdraw financial support from the United States if Asfura did not win.
Surprisingly, the US president also pardoned Juan Orlando Hernández, a member of the Aspura National Party, who was serving a 45-year prison sentence in the US on drug and weapons charges.
Castro was banned from holding office again by the constitution.
Nine days after the vote, Nasralla accused “corrupt people” of manipulating vote counts in the Central American country. He also said Trump’s comments damaged his chances of victory.
“The United States looks forward to working with the incoming administration to advance bilateral and regional security cooperation,” Rubio said in a statement after announcing the results, adding, “The two countries will end illegal immigration to the United States and strengthen economic ties.”
