Nasry Asfura has been declared the winner of Honduras' razor-thin presidential election, after weeks of delays following technical problems and allegations of fraud.
The conservative National Party candidate - backed by US President Donald Trump - won with 40.3% of the vote, according to the National Electoral Council (CNE), edging out Salvador Nasralla of the centre-right Liberal Party, who got 39.5%.
In a post on X, Asfura said: Honduras: I am ready to govern. I will not let you down. Meanwhile, Nasralla said at a press conference: I will not accept a result built on omissions. But he also urged his supporters to remain calm.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio urged all parties to respect the result so that Honduran authorities may ensure a peaceful transition of authority. However, the president of the country's Congress, Luis Redondo, posted saying the result was completely illegal.
The vote was held on 30 November but the count was delayed twice by technical outages, which electoral officials called inexcusable. The president of the CNE, Ana Paola Hall, blamed the private company tasked with tabulating the results for the delay, stating it had carried out maintenance without warning.
Results of the election were tight, resulting in around 15% of the tally sheets needing to be counted by hand for the winner to be decided. Protests erupted as tensions rose with the outgoing President Xiomara Castro alleging interference from Trump.
Trump had previously threatened to withhold U.S. financial support if his endorsed candidate did not win, further complicating the political landscape in Honduras.
