🔗 Share this article Honduran Candidate Claims Vote Has Been 'Manipulated' Tensions have run high as the lead changed hands several times. The centrist candidate in Honduras's tightly contested presidential election, Salvador Nasralla, has accused "unscrupulous individuals" of tampering with the vote count in the country. Over a week after the election, the electoral council has still not declared a winner, but the latest results suggest that Nasry "Tito" Asfura, the right-wing contender endorsed by US President Donald Trump, holds a narrow lead. Nasralla, who had been ahead in the initial stages before falling to second place, declared on social media: "This is a robbery." The progressive hopeful trailing in third, Rixi Moncada, has called for the vote to be invalidated and accused Trump of the election. Narrow Results and Growing Frustration With 98.77% of votes counted, Asfura had 40.53% of the vote, leading Nasralla with under forty percent and Moncada with 19.32%, per the election body's update. Patience has worn thin over the last week as the counting stalled several times, sometimes for extended periods. Representatives of the CNE attributed the delays to "system glitches." They have also cautioned that thousands of voting records with "discrepancies" still need to be examined. Trump's Backing and Surprise Pardon The run-up to the election was overshadowed by Trump's support for Nasry "Tito" Asfura. Shortly before the vote, Trump backed the former mayor of Tegucigalpa, saying that "Tito and I can work together to fight the Narcocommunists." "We will be very supportive should Asfura win, but the United States will not be throwing good money after bad, because a poor choice can only bring disastrous outcomes," Trump added. In a unexpected action two days before the election, Trump also pardoned jailed former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández, who is from the same party as Asfura. Hernández was in the midst of a 45-year prison sentence in the US for conspiring to import cocaine. His pardon and subsequent release has shocked Honduran authorities, who issued an international arrest warrant for Hernández, who remains in the US. Rising Tensions and Claims of Interference At the same time, the situation has grown more tense as the lead in the vote count fluctuated repeatedly. Trump accused the CNE of "trying to change" the outcome when Nasralla pulled past Asfura early on. "If they do, there will be hell to pay," the US president said without providing evidence of any fraud. Ever since the Trump-endorsed Asfura moved in the lead, it has been his two rivals crying foul. Rixi Moncada's Libre party called for the "the total annulment" of the elections. It also urged its supporters to protest publicly against what it called "the interference and coercion of the President of the United States." Nasralla blamed unnamed "corrupt ones" for "holding up the counting process." Under Honduran law, the CNE has until 30 December to declare a winner.