Tegucigalpa. The Consejo Nacional Electoral declared National Party candidate Nasry “Tito” Asfura the winner of Honduras’ elections on Wednesday. The result was announced more than three weeks after the elections, which took place on November 30th. Electoral councilors Ana Paola Hall and Cossette López, who represent the Liberal and National parties on the body, wrote in a statement on Christmas Eve that Asfura was 0.74 percent ahead of his closest competitor, Salvador Nasralla of the Liberal Party. Accordingly, Asfura received 40.27 percent of the vote, Nasralla 39.53 percent and Rixi Moncada from the Libre party, which is still in government, was chosen by 19.19 percent of voters.
The announcement of the final result had been delayed several times; most recently, the electoral council had stated that it would recount around 15 percent of the votes ( Amerika21 reported). According to CNN, this recount has not yet been completely completed, but “98.27 percent of the ballots have been counted completely and correctly,” so the result can be announced. The decision in the three-member electoral council was made only with the votes of representatives of the National and Liberal parties. The National Party had recently pushed for a result to be announced “before Christmas” ( Amerika21 reported).
The opposition does not recognize the result. Nasralla said at a press conference on Wednesday, “I do not accept the statement released today, December 24, by the National Electoral Council.” He also stressed that he was not prepared to accept a result based on omissions. “This affects the poor. I wanted to develop the country and give them opportunities,” he said. “Silence in the face of injustice does not bring me peace… I am not calling for unrest or violence; I am calling for conscience, respect and the peaceful defense of the election.”
Luis Redondo, president of Congress and member of the Libre party, also rejected the statement, saying in his view it had “no legal basis.” According to press reports, Redondo is considering trying to persuade Congress to exercise its constitutional right – under Article 205, paragraph seven – and carry out a recount.
However, as chairwoman of the electoral council, Hall contradicted these allegations. “No one in the National Electoral Council (CNE) ‘elects’ the President of the Republic; it is the people who decide and the CNE merely confirms the result.” However, the Electoral Council came under criticism several times before and after the elections; audios were published in which members of the Electoral Council were said to have discussed the possibilities of manipulating the elections ( Amerika21 reported).
Foreign Minister Marco Rubio immediately congratulated from the USA. Ex-President Juan Orlando Hernández, who was imprisoned for drug trafficking in the USA and pardoned by Donald Trump shortly before the election, also wrote on The right-wing governments of Argentina, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Panama, Paraguay, Peru and the Dominican Republic issued a joint statement recognizing the electoral council’s decision and calling for cooperation with the new government. The social democratic government of Guatemala also congratulated on Wednesday.
The elections were overshadowed by massive US interference. A few days before the elections, US President Trump called for Asfura to be elected and announced that he would only provide financial aid if he won the election. The Libre party also pointed out that “millions of people in Honduras” had received WhatsApp messages before the elections threatening that if the Libre party won the election, remittances, the money transfers from migrants home, would no longer come into the country. These remittances account for around 26 percent of Honduras’ gross domestic product.
