Image source, Marvin RECINOS / AFP via Getty Images
Who won the elections and who will succeed Xiomara Castro as president? The answers to these questions remain elusive for Hondurans.
Eight days before the elections, the National Electoral Council (CNE) has not yet completed the scrutiny and does not appear to be close to doing so.
“The entire electoral process has been a constant battle,” Cossette López, one of the three members of the electoral body, admitted this Saturday.
Over the weekend, the referee has been unable to assign a single additional vote to the two main candidates in contention: Conservative businessman Nasry Asfura, standard bearer of the National Party and to whom the president of the United States, Donald Trump, gave his support; and television presenter Salvador Nasralla, from the Liberal Party.
Since Friday, the table of calculations remains the same, assigning Asfura 1,132,321 votes (40.20%) and 1,112,570 to Nasralla (39.50%); That is, a difference of just 19,751 votes. This, with 88.2% of the ballots counted.
The Electoral Observation Mission of the Organization of American States has asked the electoral authorities to speed up the counting and thus put an end to the uncertainty in which the Central American country is, some of the causes of which we explain below.
Image source, Marvin RECINOS / AFP via Getty Images
1. Technological failures
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One of the first explanations for the delay in publishing the results of the close elections were the technical problems faced by the ASD company.
The Colombian firm was hired by the CNE to be in charge of the transmission of preliminary data, the general scrutiny and the dissemination of election results.
“During the day, there was an impact on the availability of our technological infrastructure. This situation was derived from an unusual and high volume of requests registered as of November 30, 2025, at 10:30 p.m.,” the company explained in a statement.
ASD admitted that the volume of inquiries “far exceeded the estimates contemplated in the previously carried out load tests.”
The company had guaranteed the CNE that its systems would have the capacity to handle 200,000 queries per second 24 hours a day, seven days a week, the Honduran newspaper reported. The Press.
And, as if this were not enough, hours later the electoral authorities reported two cyber attacks.
“The process was too big for (the contractor),” Fernando Cerimedo, Asfura’s assistant, told the AFP agency.
These criticisms were supported by the OAS Observation Mission, which denounced “the marked lack of expertise in the development and execution, especially of technological solutions” during the elections.
The Libre party of outgoing president Xiomara Castro, which came in third place, demanded on Sunday the “total annulment” of the elections, alleging “interference” from the United States, the AFP agency reported.
Image source, Orlando SIERRA / AFP via Getty Images
However, the authorities asked both the candidates and citizens for patience and recalled that the legislation gives them 30 days to announce the winner of the elections.
“Let us continue our work,” claimed the president of the CNE, Ana Paola Hall.
But, to add more confusion and doubts about the contractor’s capacity, this Sunday, another member of the CNE, Marlon Ochoa, reported that someone modified “the source code of the data transmission and general scrutiny system.”
“The transmission software was modified without using the three keys, that is, someone had access to the already sealed system, opened it, made changes and closed it again outside the guarantees provided for in the Electoral Law of Honduras,” said the advisor, who was appointed by the ruling Libre party.
Image source, ORLANDO SIERRA/AFP via Getty Images
2. To vote again
But ASD was not the only one that had problems, on November 30 – the day of the elections -, in the town of San Antonio de Flores, about 80 kilometers southeast of Tegucigalpa, a series of complaints of irregularities forced voting to be suspended.
The elections in this mountainous town close to the border with Nicaragua were repeated this Sunday, December 7, under strong security measures, and now the 4,996 voters registered in this rural town will be able to tip the balance to one side or the other.
“Every vote, no matter how insignificant it may seem, matters,” said Nasralla, who traveled by helicopter to San Antonio de Flores on Saturday for a last-minute campaign effort, Reuters reported.
Image source, Lucas AGUAYO / AFP via Getty Images
3. Inconsistencies between the votes and the minutes
Another problem that has delayed scrutiny are complaints of alleged anomalies in some minutes.
Of the 16,858 minutes scrutinized until Friday, 2,407 present “inconsistencies”, which will force a vote-by-vote recount, according to the electoral body.
However, Nasralla raised the number of records with problems to 5,000.
“Stop stealing my votes in the CNE,” the Liberal Party candidate demanded on Friday, who assured that a recount of the minutes with problems and the remaining ones will give him an advantage of 40,000 votes over his conservative rival.
Nasralla’s complaints led the ruling Libre party to request the CNE to completely annul the elections, considering them a “disaster.”
Rixi Moncada, candidate of the party of the outgoing president Xiomara Castro, occupies third place with 543,675 ballots (19.30%).
The ruling party’s request was rejected by Nasralla.
“We must not annul the elections, we must appoint someone to tell what has already been voted, no matter how long it takes,” declared the presidential candidate.
The CNE plans to review 2,177 minutes this week, the Honduran newspaper reported The Herald.
This process will include comparing the doubtful records with the ballot boxes, for which each vote will be counted until the true result is determined.
Image source, Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
4. Waiting for outsiders
The closeness of this race, with a difference of less than 1% between Asfura and Nasralla, forces the referee to count every vote, including those cast outside national borders.
As of the end of last week, votes abroad had not yet been counted. Of the 6.5 million Hondurans eligible to vote, some 400,000 are in the United States, the only country where electoral authorities set up voting centers.
At the moment, it is unknown how many people actually participated in the process. However, it was estimated that each of the 12 polling stations installed in the North American country could receive 1,200 votes; that is, 14,400 in total, reported the Honduran newspaper The Press.
In such a close context, those votes could also help define a winner.
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