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The president of Honduras, Xiomara Castro, declared the general elections held on November 30 as "null," after her candidate and political heir, Rixi Moncada, came in third place with 19.3% of the votes, far behind the two leading contenders.
The National Electoral Council (CNE) has not yet completed the counting, but with 97% of the votes counted, the conservative businessman Nasry Asfura, supported by U.S. President Donald Trump, leads with 40.5%, closely followed by the liberal Salvador Nasralla, with 39.1%.
Only 40,000 votes separate both candidates, in an election marked by allegations of technological failures, cyberattacks, and inconsistencies in thousands of records.
On Sunday, the ruling party Libre, led by Castro, demanded the “complete annulment of the elections” and called for mobilizations, strikes, and protests, accusing the electoral system of being “manipulated with foreign interference.”
The decision was supported this Monday by the president herself, who, in a message conveyed from the Presidential House, stated that “the process is flawed and does not reflect the popular will.”
Castro, a political ally of the regimes of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela and Miguel Díaz-Canel in Cuba, accused the opposition and “foreign powers” of intervening in the vote count to prevent the continuation of her political project.
On her part, the president of the CNE, Ana Paola Hall, urged the parties to remain calm and reminded them that the law allows 30 days to officialize the results.
The OAS Electoral Observation Mission urged the organization to expedite the counting “to put an end to uncertainty,” although it currently ruled out any evidence of widespread fraud.
Meanwhile, the CNE has ordered to review more than 2,000 records with inconsistencies and count the votes cast abroad, primarily in the United States, where more than 400,000 Hondurans eligible to vote reside.
The political climate remains tense in Tegucigalpa and other cities in the country, where supporters of the Libre party have blocked roads and demanded the repetition of the elections.
International observers warn that Castro's call to disregard the elections could exacerbate the institutional crisis in the Central American country.
If the CNE confirms the current results, Honduras will transition from a leftist government to a conservative one, led by Nasry Asfura, who is close to former president Juan Orlando Hernández and the National Party.
From Washington, the State Department, led by Marco Rubio, called for respect for the electoral results and for "preserving democratic institutions."
On their part, allied governments of Castro such as Venezuela and Nicaragua supported the claim of "electoral fraud" and questioned the transparency of the process.
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