Nasry Asfura has been declared the winner of Honduras' razor-thin presidential election, after weeks of delays following technical problems and allegations of fraud.
The conservative National Party candidate - backed by US President Donald Trump - won with 40.3% of the vote, according to the National Electoral Council (CNE), edging out Salvador Nasralla of the centre-right Liberal Party, who got 39.5%.
In a post on X, Asfura said: Honduras: I am ready to govern. I will not let you down. Meanwhile, Nasralla said at a press conference: I will not accept a result built on omissions. But he also urged his supporters to remain calm.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio urged all parties to respect the result so that Honduran authorities may ensure a peaceful transition of authority. But the president of the country's Congress, Luis Redondo, posted saying the result was completely illegal.
The vote was held on 30 November but the count was delayed twice by technical outages, which electoral officials called inexcusable. The president of the CNE, Ana Paola Hall, blamed the private company tasked with tabulating the results for the delay, stating that maintenance was done without warning or consultation.
The stoppage came a day after the portal displaying real-time results had crashed. Results of the election were tight, and about 15% of the tally sheets had to be counted by hand due to the tumultuous processing system.
There have been tensions in Honduras as a result of the delays, with protests held across the country. Thousands of supporters of the governing Libre party demonstrated in the capital Tegucigalpa over what they considered fraud in the vote.
The outgoing President, Xiomara Castro, alleged that an electoral coup was taking place and claimed the election was marred by interference from Trump. When he endorsed Asfura for president, Trump warned that there would be hell to pay if the narrow lead was overturned.
In a surprising move, the US president also pardoned Juan Orlando Hernández, a member of Asfura's National Party, who was serving a 45-year jail sentence in the US on drug and weapons charges.
Nasralla accused corrupt people of manipulating the vote count, stating that Trump's comments damaged his chances of winning. In his statement following the results announcement, Rubio expressed hope for working with Asfura's administration to enhance bilateral and regional security cooperation.
