Tegucigalpa (EFE).- Activists from the ruling Liberty and Refoundation Party (Libre) rallied on Wednesday, burning tires and chanting «No to electoral fraud» in reference to the general elections held on Nov. 30.
The protests began Tuesday after former President Manuel Zelaya, Libre’s general coordinator and husband of President Xiomara Castro, called on party members in Tegucigalpa to march toward the National Institute of Professional Training (INFOP), a logistics support center for the National Electoral Council (CNE).
Early Wednesday morning in Tegucigalpa, another group of demonstrators who claimed to be employees of the National Autonomous Water and Sewer Service (SANAA) blocked the entrance to the institution and began burning tires.
Similar protests occurred on the highway between the cities of El Progreso and Tela in northern Honduras.
The gates of the institute remain closed and guarded by Military Police of Public Order (PMOP) and National Civil Police personnel. By law, the Armed Forces are responsible for transporting, protecting, and monitoring electoral materials.
As of Tuesday, Zelaya, who is also President Castro’s chief advisor, said that Libre’s national count of presidential ballot tally sheets showed that the opposition candidate, Salvador Nasralla of the conservative Liberal Party, had won the election.
«I consulted our candidate (from Libre) Rixi Moncada to give this information because, according to our own national count of presidential polls, ballot by ballot, the one who wins the presidency is Salvador Alejandro César Nasralla Salum,» Zelaya posted on X.
Zelaya essentially acknowledged the defeat of Libre’s presidential candidate in the general election. Preliminary results from the electoral body show Nasry «Tito» Asfura, the conservative National Party candidate supported by President Donald Trump, in the lead.
He claimed that Trump’s pardon of former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández last week, who was serving a 45-year sentence in New York for drug trafficking and weapons offenses, as well as Trump’s support of the National Party candidate, «brutally altered the voting intention that clearly favored Libre’s candidate, Rixi Moncada.»
In addition, Zelaya stressed that «electoral terrorism was imposed through a manipulated TREP (Transmission of Preliminary Electoral Results)» and that an «electoral coup is in progress.»
«We firmly denounce it. We do not accept it. Because of these dirty maneuvers, we demand that the elections be declared invalid,» stressed the former president, overthrown on Jun. 28, 2009, while promoting reforms that the authorities argued violated the law.
According to the latest CNE results, 99.40% of the ballot tally sheets scrutinized, Nasry «Tito» Asfura is in first place with 1,298,835 votes (40.52%), and Salvador Nasralla of the Liberal Party is in second place with 1,256,428 votes (39.48%). Moncada remains in third place with 618,448 votes (19.29%).
Hondurans went to the polls to elect a president, three vice presidents, 298 mayors, and 128 deputies for the local parliament and 20 deputies for the Central American parliament. EFE
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