Xiomara Castro alleges US manipulation and blackmail as preliminary count shows two rightwing candidates closely tied
Honduras’s president, Xiomara Castro, has alleged that an “electoral coup” is under way in the country’s presidential election, which she says has been marked by “interference from the president of the United States, Donald Trump”.
The leftist president also said that “The Honduran people must never accept elections marked by interference, manipulation and blackmail … Sovereignty is not negotiable, democracy is not surrendered.”
Since Hondurans went to the polls on 30 November, the vote count has dragged on, with repeated interruptions and outages on the electoral council’s website.
Two rightwing candidates have been neck and neck ever since and, with 99.4% of tally sheets counted in the preliminary results, Nasry “Tito” Asfura is ahead with 40.52%, followed closely by Salvador Nasralla on 39.48% – a margin of only 42,000 votes.
