A member of Honduras’ electoral council accused one of her fellow members of trying to stifle progress while the Central American nation is still waiting for the results of Sunday’s presidential election.
Cossette Lopez-Osorio of the National Electoral Council (CNE) claimed in a social media post that her panelist, Marlon Ochoa, “intimidated” her fellow panelist by attempting to postpone a press conference on Tuesday.
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Lopez-Osorio wrote that the press conference held to announce the resume of the results release had been canceled.
Councillor Marlon Ochoa voted against restarting the process and ordered LIBRE party members and his staff to storm the Hotel Plaza Juan Carlos to avenge against their orders to stop the event from happening in public.
The allegations only add to the already contentious atmosphere surrounding Sunday’s race.
As the votes are being counted, two candidates, one from the center-right Liberal Party, and one from the right-wing National Party, Nasry “Tito” Asfura.
As of Tuesday afternoon, Asfura was only 39.86 percent of the vote, while Nasralla had a nearly identical share of the vote.
In early voting counts, Rixi Moncada of the left-leaning LIBRE party, the race’s former frontrunner, had lost ground. About 20% of the votes have not yet been tallied, according to the CNE.
Infighting on the council
However, controversy had already seized control of the council before the first ballots had been cast for Sunday’s election, leading parties alleging malpractice.
A three-person panel serves as the CNE’s chairperson. Honduras’ legislature selects each CNE councillor to represent the three main political parties: LIBRE, the party of Xiomara Castro, and the Liberal Party, the National Party.
The National Party is represented by Lopez-Osorio. She and her LIBRE counterpart, Ochoa, have a turbulent relationship.
Ochoa complained to federal prosecutors in October that Lopez-Osorio had been caught in audiotapes conspiring with the Honduran military to influence the outcomes.
Lopez-Osorio refutes the allegations. She called Ochoa’s complaint “outrageous,” telling the Honduran newspaper La Prensa, “these are fabricated recordings.”
Attorney General Johel Zelaya, however, on October 29 began an investigation into the audio recordings.
Ochoa, however, continued to raise questions about the election process as the November 30 vote approached.
For instance, he cited connectivity issues in a social media post on November 9 that a voting system test had “failed.”
According to him, that result “provides further evidence that the leaked audios are accurate and that there is an electoral process conspiractiously carried out by the electoral body itself.”
Additionally, the CNE has experienced some well-known conflicts. The joint chiefs of staff head of Honduras, Roosevelt Hernandez, stated in October that the armed forces would conduct its own vote counting.
However, legal experts claim that the Honduran military’s review of the results has no constitutional basis because the CNE president, Liberal Party member Ana Paola Hall, refrained from doing so.
Trouble at the voting booth
Honduras’ presidential election has long been plagued by concerns about irregularities and electoral interference.
For instance, in March, campaigners argued that voting was hampered by long lines and delayed distribution of election materials. Due to the delays, some polling places remained open through the night.
The government website crashed this week, and the vote count also sputtered. Lopez-Osorio addressed some of the “technical failures” and “transmission issues” that have hampered the proceedings in an interview with CNN on Tuesday.
She denied that there was any kind of conspiracy behind the hiccups. She addressed CNN host Fernando del Rincon, “It is literally a technical failure in the disclosure platform.”
Lopez-Osorio stated that the CNE was “looking for explanations” and had spoken with ASD SAS, the technology company. She continued, adding that the vote counting would continue.
In the final days, she said, “We have very small margins, and we also have a large number of ballots to process.”
Her remarks were echoed by a statement that was made on the CNE website. According to a portion of the article, “The CNE has demanded that ASD SAS provide the quickest possible technical solution so that all citizens have full and permanent access to statistical data.”
However, those remarks are unlikely to stifle efforts to contest the upcoming election results.
Trump, a supporter of the right-wing Asfura, has already posted information on his website Truth Social that amplifies allegations of election fraud.
Honduras appears to be trying to influence the outcome of their presidential election. There will be hell to pay” if they do! Trump wrote on Monday.
The candidate with the left appears to be prepared to contest the outcomes, Moncada. She criticized Trump for his “imperial foreign interference” in the electoral process in a statement released this week. She added that the initial election results provided evidence that the audio leak from October was real.
She wrote, “The elections are not lost.” The two-party system “imposed its electoral plan on us, following the fallacy that the 26 audio recordings exposed.”
She continued, “I hereby declare that I will keep my positions and refrain from giving up.”
