By Jorge Antonio Rocha
MEXICO CITY (AA) - Election officials in Honduras began a special scrutiny process Thursday, more than two weeks after the general elections, with conservative and US favorite Nasry Asfura maintaining a lead.
Starting at 3.40 pm local time (2140GMT), the Honduras National Election Council (CNE) set out to revise 2,792 ballots marked with inconsistencies.
Asfura from the Honduran National Party and preferred by US President Donald Trump, holds the lead with 1,305,130 votes, or 40.53%. Salvador Nasralla of the Liberal Party trails with 1,262,055 votes, or 39.20%.
The ruling Libre Party candidate, Rixi Moncada, is in third with 621,232 votes.
Following the Nov. 30 elections, Honduras sunk into an electoral crisis due to problems with the online platform briefing the results and alleged security breaches in the counting system.
Ruling party and electoral officials have continued to question the validity of the elections following concerns about the string of inconsistencies in the counting system.
Members of Congress allied with the ruling party and President Xiomara Castro condemned and refused to acknowledge the election, adding to accusations of a supposed US-backed coup developing to impose Asfura as the next leader of Honduras.
But Castro has changed her tone and vowed to respect the outcome of the special recount and said she will oversee a peaceful transition to "maintain peace."
Meanwhile, Nasralla has said the 2,792 ballots under scrutiny do not constitute the entirety of the votes to be revised, saying there are 8,084 ballots with inconsistencies that must fall under special scrutiny.
"That must be authorized by 2 of the 3 council members of the CNE, who—even though they were nominated by their political parties—owe their duty to 11 million Hondurans. If they do not do so, history will judge them, and 8 million Hondurans from the opposition will condemn them," Nasralla wrote on US social media company X.