Honduras’ National Electoral Council on Thursday began a long-delayed manual count of about 15% of the votes cast in last month’s presidential election, a laborious task that could end up overturning the conservative candidate’s lead. The special review process will examine hundreds \u2060of thousands of ballots that had been left uncounted by computers due to inconsistencies with the tally sheets that were identified by election officials. The hand \u200ccount could easily change \u2060the election’s preliminary result, which gave Conservative Nasry Asfura of the National Party a razor-thin margin of 43,000 votes – out of more than 3 million cast – over center-right Liberal Party candidate Salvador Nasralla. It is \u200dunlikely, however, to quiet claims of fraud and demands for a new election by the ruling leftist LIBRE party, whose candidate Rixi Moncada is a distant third in the vote count. The November 30 presidential election has been rocked by a chaotic vote-tallying process, as well \u2060as political clash
es and U.S. intervention. President Donald Trump has backed Asfura, the 67-year-old former mayor of Tegucigalpa, and suggested that Washington’s support for Honduras would be conditional on Asfura winning the election. Nasralla, a television host and three-time presidential candidate, told Reuters that he believed Trump’s comments had damaged his chances. He has also said he believed the election was \u200cmarred by fraud. Both Nasralla and LIBRE have demanded a manual recount of all ballots that were cast but the president of the election council rebuffed them, saying there was no legal basis for a full recount without concrete evidence of irregularities. Asfura has remained \u2060largely silent on the election, saying people should wait for the final results. PROTESTERS BLOCK MANUAL COUNT, ALLEGE ‘ELECTORAL COUP’ On Wednesday afternoon, LIBRE leaders called on their supporters to gather at the presidential palace to protest against what they called an “electoral coup” and inter
ference by Trump. “Today, democracy in Honduras is in serious trouble. They want to manipulate our democracy and make decisions that only the people \u2060should make,” President Xiomara Castro told thousands of protesters who were dressed in the ruling party’s red colors and chanted “vote-by-vote.” Election officials blamed the stalled manual count of inconsistent tally sheets on LIBRE protesters blocking the building where they work. “Our officials cannot enter to perform their duties,” Ana \u200dPaola Hall, president of the National Electoral Council, said on Tuesday night. On Wednesday, the U.S. Department of State demanded in a message on X that Honduras begin the special review of uncounted ballots. “Any call to disrupt public order or the CNE’s (election council’s) work will be \u200cmet with consequences,” the U.S. State Department’s \u200bBureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs said \u200cin a post on X. “The voices of 3.4 million Hondurans must be respected a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Honduras’ National Electoral Council on Thursday began a long-delayed manual count of about 15% of the votes cast in last month’s presidential election, a laborious task that could end up overturning the conservative candidate’s lead. The special review process will examine hundreds \u2060of thousands of ballots that had been left uncounted by computers due to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n