With 80 percent of the vote counted, the centrist candidate widened his lead over his Trump-backed conservative rival.
Honduran presidential candidate Salvador Nasrallah has extended a narrow lead over his conservative rival, Nasri Asfura. supported United States President Donald Trump, as the counting of votes continues on the fourth day.
With 80.29 percent of ballots counted on Wednesday, the centrist Liberal Party’s Nasrallah won 40.23 percent and the National Party’s Asfura 39.69 percent, according to the country’s National Electoral Council (CNE).
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Nasrallah’s lead over Asfura was less than 14,000 votes.
Rixi Moncada of the ruling left LIBRE party was third with 19.01 percent of the vote.
According to CNE, it is too early to call results.
The Honduran presidency is decided in a single round and the candidate with the most votes wins, even if the margin is narrow or less than an absolute majority.
The election held on Sunday was fiercely contested, and the counting of votes was delayed due to technical difficulties.
CNE suspended vote counting for a second time on Wednesday, with electoral council members blaming the company behind the tabulating platform for the outage.
CNE official Cosette López-Osorio said that the suspension of the latest count was due to system maintenance without proper notification and she considered it “inexcusable”.
Nasrallah, a 72-year-old television presenter, remained confident despite the problems.
“Either way, we’re going to win,” he wrote on X.
Election observers from the European Union and the Organization of American States, as well as the electoral authority of Honduras, have called for calm and restraint as the final votes are counted.
Ballots are still coming in from remote areas, some of them accessible only by donkey or riverboats, according to the CNE, and the winner is still days away from being announced.
Initial preliminary results left Asfura was shown a meager lead of 500 votes on Monday. Election organizers declared a “technical tie” and said votes would be counted by hand.
When the vote count was updated on Tuesday, Nasrallah was leading.
Trump on Monday Accusation Without providing evidence of electoral fraud, his Truth Social account claimed that Honduras was “trying to change the results of their presidential election”.
“If they do, they will pay! The people of Honduras voted in huge numbers on November 30,” he said. Trump has threatened to end US aid to Honduras if Asfura does not win. In 2024, the US provided $193.5 million in aid to the Central American country.
The CNE legally has one month to announce the winner.
Moncada, the ruling party’s candidate, told the Telesur television news network on Wednesday that the vote transmission system was flawed and criticized it for a lack of transparency.
Referring to Trump’s accusations of fraud, which she says violates international protocols, Moncada said it was a “direct intervention affecting the interests of the Honduran people.”
Trump has done it too Apologized Juan Orlando Hernandez, former president of Asfura’s National Party, who was serving a 45-year sentence in the US for drug trafficking.
The 57-year-old lawyer was released on Monday in what was widely perceived as further interference.
In his first social media post since his release, Hernandez thanked Trump on Wednesday, saying he “changed my life”.
Earlier, in a four-page letter to the US president released by media on Wednesday, Hernandez said: “Like you, President Trump, I have suffered political persecution.”
Hernandez’s wife, Ana Garcia, told the AFP news agency that he would not be returning home immediately because of security fears.