Composed of representatives from the country’s three major political parties (National, Liberal, and Libre), the CNE has until midnight tomorrow to issue the final declaration of the elections held four weeks ago, which were marred by numerous irregularities.

Ochoa, of the ruling Liberty and Refoundation Party (Libre), denounced that his colleagues from the two-party system on the electoral body, Ana Hall (Liberal) and Cossette Lopez (National), are deliberately delaying the special recount of thousands of ballots containing inconsistencies.

He accused both council members of having no intention whatsoever of counting the more than 400 tally sheets from the Central District, the municipality that includes Tegucigalpa—the one with the largest electorate in Honduras—given the virtual victory of the Libre mayor and candidate for reelection, Jorge Aldana.

Although he admitted that the winning candidate goes by a narrow margin, the mayor of the capital city asserted that the right-wing National Party’s “tough hand” intends to impose its candidate, Juan Diego Zelaya, through fraud, without finalizing the recount from all the polling stations.

“Proceeding with the general declaration of elections without processing the 435 pending tally sheets from the Central District is fraud, an act of corruption and violence that usurps and steals the popular will of our capital, Tegucigalpa,” the Libre council member emphasized on his X account.

“They are pushing this process to the limit to do what was done at the presidential level. A declaration without all the tally sheets is illegal,” Ochoa pointed out.

jdt/jha/edu