By Laura Garcia
TEGUCIGALPA, Dec 6 (Reuters) – In Honduras, Nasry Asfura, the conservative presidential candidate backed by U.S. President Donald Trump, maintained a razor-thin lead on Saturday as counting stretched into its seventh day and the race remains too close to call.
With 88% of ballots tallied, Asfura of the National Party had 40.19%, about 20,000 votes ahead of centrist rival Salvador Nasralla of the Liberal Party, who stood at 39.49%, according to the electoral authority. Rixi Moncada of the ruling leftist LIBRE Party remained well behind in third place on 19.30%.
Some 14% of ballots showed inconsistencies, officials said, and would be reviewed.
The race has received very close attention from Washington.
Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau wrote on social media on Thursday night, “The world’s eyes, including ours, are on Honduras.”
The U.S. president has directly intervened in the race, first by backing Asfura ahead of last Sunday’s election and subsequently by alleging election fraud without providing any evidence.
Trump’s backing of Asfura, experts say, fits into his push to mold a conservative bloc across Latin America, stretching from Nayib Bukele in El Salvador to Javier Milei in Argentina.
Days before voting began, Trump also announced he would pardon a former president of Asfura’s National Party: Juan Orlando Hernandez, who had been serving a 45-year sentence in the U.S. after being convicted on drug trafficking and weapons charges.
In his first video message after leaving a U.S. prison on Tuesday, Hernandez thanked Trump for pardoning him and for Trump’s “interest in the fate of our nation.”
On Saturday, the streets of the capital, Tegucigalpa, remained calm, as election workers across the country continued counting ballots by hand.
Asfura is the 67-year-old former mayor of Tegucigalpa. His tenure as mayor was plagued by a series of allegations of corruption.
Nasralla is a three-time presidential hopeful and a former popular TV presenter who describes himself as center-right. He said in an interview with Reuters that Trump’s surprise endorsement of Asfura had flipped the race.
Moncada, trailing behind the two front-runners, is a 60-year-old teacher and lawyer with the LIBRE Party, which has governed Honduras since 2022.
Honduras elects its president in a single round. The candidate with the most votes wins, even if the margin is narrow or the candidate falls short of a majority.
(Reporting by Laura Garcia in Tegucigalpa, writing by Laura Gottesdiener in Monterrey, Mexico; Editing by Aurora Ellis)
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