Honduras starts special count of final votes in its presidential election after pressure from the US

Tegucigalpa(Honduras), Dec 19 (AP) Honduras electoral officials on Thursday launched a special count of the final set of votes in the country's November presidential election, after three weeks of uncertainty, swirling accusations and pressure from the Trump administration to wrap up the results.
    The special count includes 2,792 ballot boxes from the November 30 election. It's unclear how long it will take.
    So far, electoral authorities had counted 99.80 per cent of the ballots, but the election is marked by razor thin margins and accusations of a number of regularities, which have prompted the special count.
    Ana Paola Hall, president of the National Electoral Council, said the count was being carried out in the "presence of national and international observers.”
    The process had been paralysed due to disputes over the final count, fuelling wider political uncertainty and US demands to wrap up vote tallies. On Wednesday night, the US State Department warned Honduran electoral authorities to “immediately” finalize results and that any calls to disrupt the process would “be met with consequences.”
    “The voices of 3.4 million Hondurans must be respected and upheld,” the department said on X.
    The country's two leading candidates, both conservatives, are neck-and-neck, in a clear repudiation of the country's ruling leftist President Xiomara Castro.
    Nasry Asfura, of the conservative National Party, leads with 40.54 per cent of the vote, while Salvador Nasralla, of the also conservative Liberal Party, has 39.3 per cent.
    Rixi Moncada, who ran for the ruling progressive LIBRE, or Liberty and Re-foundation party, is in third place with 19.28 per cent of the votes.
    US President Donald Trump backed Asfura in the lead up to the election, fuelling accusations of election intervention by his opponents.
    For Castro, the election was a political reckoning — she was elected in 2021 on a promise to reduce violence and root out corruption in Honduras. Castro, is the wife of former President Manuel “Mel” Zelaya, who was removed from power in a 2009 coup.
    She was among a group of progressive leaders in Latin American elected on a hopeful message of change, but are now being cast out after failing to deliver on their vision.
    Ahead of the election, Trump also pardoned former Honduras President Juan Orlando Hernández, sentenced last year to 45 years in prison for his role in a drug trafficking operation by a US court. (AP) RD
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(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)