Trump-backed presidential candidate in Honduras leads vote count

Dec. 1 (UPI) -- Honduran presidential candidate Nasry "Tito" Asfura -- whom President Donald Trump urged voters to support -- is leading in preliminary results from Sunday's general elections with a slight edge over fellow right-wing candidate Salvador Nasralla.

However, with 55% of polling stations counted, the difference between the two candidates is minimal -- fewer than 3,000 votes -- and could shift at any moment.

According to the National Electoral Council, Asfura leads the race with 40.1% of the vote, while Nasralla has 39.2%, the newspaper El Heraldo reported.

The electoral process was marked by accusations of fraud among the candidates and widespread public distrust. For that reason, the main opposition candidates, Nasry Asfura, Salvador Nasralla and Mario Rivera, signed the Democratic Agreement for Honduras-Defense of the Vote on Nov. 11, committing to ensure transparency and defend the results.

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The campaign was shaken by comments from President Donald Trump, who on Nov. 28 announced a pardon for former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, convicted in New York on drug trafficking charges, and urged voters to support Asfura.

"Tito Asfura is the only true friend of freedom in Honduras," Trump said.

Ruling party candidate Rixi Moncada released an exit poll Sunday that placed her as the winner, even though the National Electoral Council had warned that no candidate should declare victory before the first official update.

"The trend favors us and the people have already decided," Moncada said at a news conference.

However, official figures place her in third with only 19.5%.

Election day was also marked by failures on the Electoral Council's official results website, which stopped working early Monday and cut off access to the electronic transmission of results during the count.

Election authorities have not said what caused the outage, but the disruption has left the public waiting for new tally sheets, La Prensa reported.