By Laura Garcia
TEGUCIGALPA, Dec 17 (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of State demanded that Honduras' National Electoral Council immediately begin a manual count of ballots from last month's presidential election, which has been stalled by protests and wrangling over alleged fraud.The electoral council has blamed protests for preventing it from starting the manual count of hundreds of thousands of ballots that it said showed inconsistencies and were therefore excluded from the initial tally.
Adding those ballots to the overall count could easily overturn conservative Nasry Asfura's current razor-thin margin of 43,000 votes - out of more than 3 million cast - over center-right candidate Salvador Nasralla.
"Any call to disrupt public order or the CNE's (election council's) work will be met with consequences," the U.S. State Department's Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs said in a post on X. "The voices of 3.4 million Hondurans must be respected and upheld."
A spokesperson for the Honduras presidency did not respond to a request for comment about Washington's remarks. The chaotic vote-tallying process has fueled tensions and political clashes that were already at a high pitch after U.S. President Donald Trump backed Asfura, the 67-year-old former mayor of Tegucigalpa, and suggested that Washington's support for Honduras was conditional on Asfura winning the election. Nasralla, a television host and three-time presidential candidate, told Reuters that he believed Trump's comments had damaged his chances.
Trailing far behind in third place is Rixi Moncada of the ruling leftist party LIBRE.
Nasralla has said he believed the election was marred by fraud. Both Nasralla and LIBRE have demanded a manual recount of all ballots that were cast, but the election council has said it only needs to look at the ballots that were excluded from the initial count.
PROTESTERS BLOCK MANUAL COUNT, ALLEGE 'ELECTORAL COUP'
On Wednesday afternoon, LIBRE leaders called on their supporters to gather at the presidential palace to protest what they called an electoral coup and interference by Trump.
"Today, democracy in Honduras is in serious trouble. They want to manipulate our democracy and make decisions that only the people should make," President Xiomara Castro told thousands of protesters who were dressed in the ruling party's red colors and chanted "vote-by-vote."
Election officials have blamed the stalled manual count of suspect tally sheets on LIBRE protesters blocking the building where they work.
"Our officials cannot enter to perform their duties," Ana Paola Hall, president of the National Electoral Council, said on Tuesday night.
In a document addressed to fellow members on the electoral council, Hall said there was no legal basis for granting a manual recount of all votes unless there was concrete evidence of irregularities.
The electoral council has until December 30 to declare the winner of the election, who would assume office at the end of January for a four-year term.
Major international election observers, including the European Union and the Organization of American States, have expressed concern over the chaotic and delayed vote count but have not reported evidence of systemic fraud.
(Reporting by Laura Garcia; Additional reporting by Jasper Ward in Washington: Writing by Cassandra Garrison; Editing by Emily Green and Edmund Klamann)
