MEXICO CITY — After a tense hiatus exceeding 25 hours, Honduras’ National Electoral Council (CNE) resumed tallying votes from the November 30 presidential election on Tuesday, December 2, 2025, imploring a polarized public to exercise patience as the razor-thin contest between two conservative frontrunners teetered on the edge of a technical tie. The disruption, triggered by a technical glitch in the Preliminary Results Transmission System (TREP), had plunged the Central American nation into a maelstrom of suspicion, with accusations of sabotage flying from all corners of the political spectrum.
As the count flickered back to life, Liberal Party candidate Salvador Nasralla surged into a slim lead with 815,261 votes, edging out National Party rival Nasry “Tito” Asfura’s 808,737, based on early updates from approximately 62% of polling stations. This nail-biting duel has utterly overshadowed the bid of Rixi Moncada, the ruling Libre Party’s standard-bearer and handpicked successor to outgoing President Xiomara Castro, who languished at 19% of the vote with 389,842 ballots.
The November 30 vote marked a pivotal moment for Honduras, a country scarred by decades of political upheaval, including the 2009 military coup that ousted then-President Manuel Zelaya (Castro’s husband) and ushered in years of conservative dominance marred by corruption scandals. With Castro constitutionally barred from seeking re-election after her 2021 triumph, which ended the 12-year reign of the scandal-plagued National Party under Juan Orlando Hernández, the 2025 contest was billed as a referendum on her leftist agenda of social reforms, anti-corruption drives, and resource nationalization. Yet preliminary tallies suggest a resounding voter rebuke: Moncada’s 19% haul signals deep disillusionment with Libre’s governance, plagued by economic stagnation, persistent gang violence, and unfulfilled promises on poverty reduction in a nation where over 70% live below the poverty line.
The race’s volatility intensified when the TREP system, designed to provide real-time preliminary data from polling stations, crashed late on Monday, halting updates at 57% of precincts and leaving the nation in limbo. At that juncture, Asfura held a precarious 515-vote edge over Nasralla, both hovering near 40%, while Moncada trailed distantly. CNE President Ana Paola Hall attributed the outage to technical issues in the initial rapid-count mechanism, assuring the public that manual verification of physical ballots was underway and final results would adhere to the 30-day legal timeline. However, the delay fueled a firestorm of recriminations, with international observers from the European Union decrying the slow pace and poor coordination that eroded public trust and amplified misinformation on social media.
Moncada wasted no time in seizing the narrative. In a flurry of posts on X (formerly Twitter), the 60-year-old former finance and defense minister decried a “bipartisan electoral plot” orchestrated by the opposition and complicit CNE officials, referencing 26 purported audio recordings that allegedly captured discussions of tampering with TREP and biometric voter data. “They imposed this scheme on us, altering the system and inflating records without biometrics, equivalent to over 543,000 manipulated votes,” she alleged, vowing not to concede without a full audit. Her claims echoed long-standing Libre grievances about the CNE’s composition, where a pre-election bipartisan pact between Liberals and Nationals granted them majority control, sidelining the ruling party’s influence.
Moncada’s outrage extended to external meddling, branding U.S. President Donald Trump’s overt backing of Asfura as “unprecedented coercion” that undermined Honduran sovereignty. Trump, who on November 26 endorsed Asfura as a partner against “narcocommunists,” escalated tensions by promising enhanced U.S. aid (over $100 million in 2025 alone) if the conservative prevailed, while threatening to withhold support otherwise. This rhetoric, analysts say, tapped into anti-leftist fears, portraying Moncada as a Venezuelan-style radical despite her platform’s focus on democratic socialism and environmental protections.
The U.S. president’s shadow loomed even larger with his concurrent announcement of a pardon for Hernández, the former National Party leader convicted in 2024 on U.S. drug-trafficking charges and sentenced to 45 years. Hernández’s release on December 1, confirmed by his wife Ana García de Hernández via social media, was decried by critics as a blatant quid pro quo to bolster Asfura’s campaign, given the ex-mayor’s ties to the disgraced administration. Asfura, 67, distanced himself during the campaign, emphasizing his record of infrastructure improvements in Tegucigalpa under the slogan “Grandpa at Your Service,” but the association lingered, alienating some voters wary of corruption’s resurgence.
On the other side, CNE counselor Cossette López Osorio fired back at Libre sympathizers, accusing them of orchestrating a “boycott” against a scheduled Tuesday press conference intended to brief the media on progress. “Alert, Honduran people: ruling-party militants tried to prevent our public appearance and transparency efforts,” she posted on X, framing the incident as an assault on institutional integrity. Her plea for calm came amid reports of scuffles outside CNE headquarters in Tegucigalpa, where military personnel guarded ballot boxes amid chants from Nasralla and Asfura supporters.
Nasralla, the 72-year-old former sportscaster and perennial candidate who once served as Castro’s vice president before a bitter split, projected confidence with internal polls showing him at 44.6%, though he cautioned against premature victory claims. Labeling himself an anti-corruption outsider, Nasralla vowed to resume ties with Taiwan (severed in 2023 under Libre) and prioritize job creation in a bid to lure back emigrants.
Trump amplified the chaos from afar, posting on Truth Social that the CNE had “abruptly stopped counting” to “change the results,” warning of “hell to pay” if fraud occurred, allegations dismissed by Hall as baseless and inflammatory. His intervention, decried by former President Zelaya as an assault on democracy, has drawn rebukes from regional bodies like the Organization of American States, which dispatched observers to monitor for irregularities.
As the manual count grinds on, now at 70% per the latest CNE figures, with Nasralla’s lead holding at about 10,000 votes, the stakes extend beyond personalities. An Asfura win could pivot Honduras toward pro-business conservatism, potentially restoring U.S. aid flows but risking a return to Hernández-era cronyism. A Nasralla victory might blend centrist reforms with cautious left-leaning policies, though his rightward shift signals a broader regional pink tide’s ebb. For Moncada’s camp, the path forward involves legal challenges and mobilizing Libre’s base, which captured no departmental majorities, underscoring the opposition’s sweep.
In Tegucigalpa’s sweltering heat, where soldiers patrol polling depots and families huddle around glitchy radios, the resumption brought fleeting relief. Yet the specter of unrest lingers. With 298 mayoral races and 128 congressional seats also in flux, Honduras braces for a verdict that could redefine its democracy, or fracture it further. Hall’s promise of “legitimate results” rings hollow amid the din, but for now, the ballot boxes hold the nation’s fragile hope.
