Honduran centrist candidate Salvador Nasralla alleged fraud in the country’s highly contested presidential vote on Thursday after his Trump-backed rival Nasry Asfura pulled narrowly past him overnight.
Nasralla, in a post on social media, said the screen displaying the vote data went blank at 3.24am and alleged “an algorithm changed the data”, giving the higher tally to Asfura after Nasralla had been leading the vote count since Tuesday. The results are being updated on the electoral body’s website.
The run-up to the vote in the small Central American country had been rocked for months by allegations of fraud. The election was catapulted to the international stage as US President Donald Trump threw his support behind Asfura and alleged, without evidence, that there had been possible fraud in the initial vote tally.
The National Party’s Asfura held 40.08 per cent, about 10,100 votes ahead of the Liberal Party’s Nasralla, who had 39.70 per cent. Rixi Moncada of the ruling leftist LIBRE Party remained well behind in third place in the election, which was held on Sunday.
With about 85 per cent of the tally sheets counted, each representing votes from a single polling station, Asfura gained a narrow lead. Around 17 per cent of the tally sheets have inconsistencies and will be reviewed, according to the country’s electoral authority.
Nasralla’s post did not include evidence of the vote change.