Tegucigalpa (EFE).- A week after Honduras held general elections, the country remains without final results as the official vote count has not been updated since Friday, fueling uncertainty and intensifying allegations of irregularities.
The National Electoral Council (CNE) stopped releasing results on Friday, though Hondurans did not learn until more than 24 hours later that the pause was due to “technical problems,” according to CNE councilors Ana Paola Hall and Cossette López.
Hall, the CNE’s presiding councilor, said she wanted “to make very clear” that the body is committed to continuous reporting but that the disruption was caused by “technical problems unrelated to the plenary” and “beyond the control of our technical team, and attributable to the contracted company,” ASD of Colombia.
She said the explanation was necessary to “reduce uncertainty” among voters.
The electoral process has also been overshadowed by tense disagreements among the three CNE councilors, each aligned with one of Honduras’ three main parties: the ruling leftist Libre party, and the conservative National and Liberal parties.
The discord resurfaced Saturday when Marlon Ochoa, the Libre representative, failed to appear at the traditional joint press briefing with Hall and López.
“The preconceived design of the National Electoral Council has unfortunately not been viable due to technical problems beyond the will of those standing here,” López said. “We continue working with determination, while others look for ammunition to delegitimize the process. All these technical issues demonstrate the dependence created by the legislative design that requires outsourcing to private companies.”
Tight race fuels suspicion
The count froze at 88.02% of tally sheets processed, placing National Party candidate Nasry “Tito” Asfura, publicly backed by United States President Donald Trump, in the lead with 1,132,321 votes (40.19%). Liberal Party candidate Salvador Nasralla followed closely with 1,112,570 votes (39.49%).
Libre’s candidate, Rixi Moncada, seeking to succeed Honduras’ first woman president, Xiomara Castro, was in third place with 543,675 ballots (19.30%).
The halt has stirred widespread suspicion among citizens, political parties, and both domestic and international observers.
With such a narrow margin between Asfura and Nasralla, demands for verification, special recounts, and review of tally sheets have increased, extending uncertainty over an electoral process that, including the March primaries, cost Hondurans around 4 billion lempiras (about 150 million dollars).
The slow progress has heightened political tensions, prompting calls for clarity, faster counting, legal challenges, and even the annulment of the presidential ballot, a request filed Saturday by Libre through one of its legal representatives.
Observers call for transparency
The Organization of American States Electoral Observation Mission (OAS/EOM), led by former Paraguayan Foreign Minister Eladio Loizaga, urged authorities “to accelerate the counting process while guaranteeing traceability and certainty in the results.”
“In this context of evident delays, the OAS Mission remains attentive to the various procedures that form part of the process,” the mission said. It added that data gathered by its observers show an “extremely tight” race.
In another sign of the difficulties marking the election, residents of San Antonio de Flores, in the eastern department of El Paraíso, were only able to vote on Sunday due to logistical issues. About 5,000 people were eligible to cast ballots there. EFE
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