US President Donald Trump threatens “serious consequences” if an alleged attempt to “change” the results of the presidential elections in Honduras is successful, where there is a virtual tie between the right-wing candidates Nasry Asfura, whom he supports, and Salvador Nasralla.

Trump is playing an active role in the elections held. on Sunday and warns that he will cut aid to the impoverished Latin American country if Asfura, a 67-year-old businessman from the National Party (PN), does not win.

“It appears that Honduras is trying to change the results of its presidential election. If they do, there will be serious consequences!” he warned on his platform Truth Social.

The president calls Nasralla, a 72-year-old television host and candidate for the Liberal Party, “almost a communist” for having held a high-ranking position in the government of leftist President Xiomara Castro, with whom he later broke.

Nasralla attributed Trump's remarks to "malicious disinformation" from his adversaries. Asfura, meanwhile, said he was ready to cooperate with the United States, home to two million Hondurans and the country's main trading partner.

Trump challenged the National Electoral Council (CNE) to conclude the vote count, which shows Asfura with a lead of just 515 votes, after the digital count of 57% of the ballots.

The CNE said earlier that it had begun the manual count, without specifying when it would end and asking for “patience.”

“The numbers will speak for themselves,” Asfura said on Monday, while Nasralla declared that he could only lose if he is “cheated.”

Pardon for former president

The elections represented a punishment for the left led by Castro, which governs one of the most violent countries in Latin America, plagued by drug trafficking and corruption.

His candidate Rixi Moncada, whom Trump accused of being an ally of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his “narco-terrorists”, trailed by more than 20 percentage points.

Trump's support for the former mayor of Tegucigalpa "was understood by the people as coercion," Moncada said on Monday.

Castro came to power in 2021, more than a decade after the coup against her husband, Manuel Zelaya, after forging closer ties with Venezuela and Cuba, which led to an unprecedented left-right polarization.

Asfura and Nasralla based their campaigns on the idea that the left's continued rule would turn Honduras into the new Venezuela, mired in a deep crisis, and they showed a willingness to strengthen ties with Taiwan, to the detriment of relations with China.

Trump's intervention has gone further, announcing that he will pardon former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, sentenced in the United States to 45 years in prison for shipping hundreds of tons of drugs in alliance with Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman.

According to the US justice system, Hernandez, who governed from 2014 to 2022 with Asfura's party, turned Honduras into a "narco-state," but Trump believes he was the victim of a "setup" by his predecessor, Joe Biden.

The announced pardon runs counter to Trump's deadly anti-drug offensive in the Caribbean, as part of his pressure on Maduro, an ally of Xiomara Castro.

The pardon for this "drug kingpin" was "arranged" by local elites, denounced the leftist candidate, a 60-year-old lawyer.

No forecast

Asfura, known as "Tito" or "Papi," obtained 39.91% of the votes compared to 39.89% for Nasralla, who admires the presidents of Argentina, Javier Milei, and El Salvador, Nayib Bukele.

"It is “It's impossible to determine the winner with the political data we have," said analyst Carlos Calix. Asfura is seeking the presidency for the second time after losing to Castro in 2021, and Nasralla for the third. In a country where 60% of its 11 million inhabitants live in poverty and with a long history of fraud and social debt, politicians suffer from widespread disrepute. “They do nothing for the poor; the rich get richer every day and the poor get poorer. Only thieves govern us," Henry Hernandez, a 53-year-old parking attendant, told AFP on Monday. Michelle Pineda, a 38-year-old shopkeeper, hopes that the winner of this close race will see the country "as more than just a bag of money to plunder." Nearly 6.5 million Hondurans were eligible to elect Castro's successor, as well as members of parliament and mayors for a four-year term.

After a campaign marked by early allegations of fraud, the day unfolded calmly, according to the OAS observer mission.