By Laura Garcia and Diego Oré
TEGUCIGALPA, Dec 3 (Reuters) - Honduras again halted the publication of official results in its presidential election, an electoral official said on Wednesday, as centrist Salvador Nasralla maintained a narrow lead ahead of Trump-backed conservative Nasry Asfura.
The release of updated results was halted due to system maintenance but without proper warning, Cossette Lopez-Osorio, an official at Honduras' electoral council, said on X, adding she considered this an "inexcusable" development.
With 79.60% of votes counted, the Liberal Party's Nasralla held 40.27% of support, less than 16,000 votes ahead of the National Party's Asfura with 39.64%. Rixi Moncada, of the ruling leftist LIBRE Party, was well behind in third place with 19.01%.
The tightly contested race has been marred by system delays and allegations of fraud, as well as the intervention from U.S. President Donald Trump, who strongly backed Asfura and alleged there had been fraud, without providing evidence.
Election observers, from the European Union and the Organization of American States, as well as Honduras' electoral authority have called for calm and patience as the final votes are counted.
Early preliminary results released on Monday had originally shown Asfura with a slim lead of some 500 votes, with election organizers declaring a "technical tie" and saying votes would have to be counted by hand. When the count was updated on Tuesday, Nasralla had swung to a narrow lead.
Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a Washington-based think tank that promotes democracy, said Trump's interference and accusations against Asfura's rivals had undoubtedly had an impact.
Trump's threat to cut funds if Asfura did not win "would be considered likely to cause economic harm to Honduras and its people," he said.
Trump said on social media that Honduras was "trying to change the results of their Presidential Election."
"If they do there will be hell to pay! The people of Honduras voted in overwhelming numbers on November 30th," he said on his Truth Social platform on Monday night.
Moncada, the ruling party candidate, told Telesur on Wednesday that she rejected the vote transmission system as flawed and criticized its lack of transparency.
Referring to Trump's interference, which she said violated all international protocols, Moncada said this marked "a direct intervention that affects the interests of the Honduran people."
(Reporting by Laura Garcia in Tegucigalpa and Diego Ore in Mexico City; editing by Stephen Eisenhammer, Brendan O'Boyle and Alistair Bell)
