By Laura Garcia
TEGUCIGALPA, Dec 9 (Reuters) - Honduras' conservative presidential candidate, Nasry Asfura, held a lead of just over 40,000 votes on Tuesday against centrist rival Salvador Nasralla, as the preliminary count from last month's election neared completion amid allegations from all sides of fraud and irregularities.
With 99.40% of tally sheets processed, official results showed Asfura, a 67-year-old former mayor of Tegucigalpa openly backed by U.S. President Donald Trump, had 40.52% of the vote. Nasralla, a 72-year-old television host running for the Liberal Party, had 39.20%. A distant third was ruling LIBRE Party candidate Rixi Moncada, a former leftist minister, with 19.29%.
About 14.5% of tally sheets showed inconsistencies and will be reviewed in a special count expected to begin in the coming hours, with party representatives, electoral authorities and independent observers present.
Those disputed sheets could contain hundreds of thousands of votes, enough to alter the current trend, prolonging uncertainty in the impoverished Central American nation.
Results will remain preliminary until the review is complete. The National Electoral Council (CNE) has until December 30 to declare a winner, who will take office in January for the 2026-2030 term.
Both leading candidates have claimed victory based on their own tallies. Nasralla alleged irregularities in the count, while the ruling LIBRE Party called for protests and annulment of the entire process due to an alleged "electoral coup" instigated by Trump and his allies.
On Tuesday, streets in Tegucigalpa and other cities were calm, though many recall the 2017 election, when about 30 people died in mass protests after then-President Juan Orlando Hernandez won reelection in a vote widely denounced as fraudulent.
The November 30 vote unfolded peacefully, according to independent observers. But the release of results has been chaotic, with delays fueling frustration over the tight race. Electoral officials blamed the company behind the tabulation platform for the slow count.
The U.S. government said it is closely monitoring the process and warned it is ready to respond to any irregularity "swiftly and decisively." Days before the vote, Trump urged Hondurans to back Asfura, criticized his rivals and said he would pardon Hernandez, who is serving a 45-year sentence for drug trafficking.
In the run-up to the election — which also chose 128 members of the unicameral Congress and thousands of other officials — both the ruling party and opposition traded fraud accusations while offering few concrete plans to tackle Honduras' deep problems: drug trafficking, corruption and poverty, which affects six in 10 Hondurans.
(Reporting by Laura Garcia in Tegucigalpa; Writing by Diego Ore and Sarah Kinosian; Editing by Matthew Lewis)
