US denies visas to Honduran electoral officials amid election chaos

Dec 19 - U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Friday the State Department has refused the visa application of Marlon Ochoa, a member of the Honduran National Electoral Council, and revoked

the visa of Mario Morazan, the head of Honduras' electoral court.

Honduras' presidential election took place on November 30 but nearly three weeks later there is still no clarity on who will be the country's next president.

The chaotic elections have been rocked by a fumbled vote-tallying process, allegations of fraud and U.S. intervention.

"The Department has refused the visa application of Marlon Ochoa and taken steps to impose visa restrictions on another individual for undermining democracy in Honduras," Rubio said in a statement. "We will consider all appropriate measures to deter those impeding the vote count in Honduras," he added.

Ochoa and Morazan did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.

Weeks before Honduras’ November 30 presidential election, Ochoa had said that a test run exposed deep flaws in the vote-counting system: only 36% of practice ballots were processed.

Honduras' National Electoral Council began on Thursday the long-delayed manual count of about 15% of the votes cast in last month's election after the U.S. State Department had demanded on Wednesday that the council immediately begin a count of ballots.

The electoral council blamed protests for preventing it from starting the manual count of ballots that it said showed inconsistencies and were therefore excluded from the initial tally.

The hand count could easily change the election's preliminary result, which gave Conservative Nasry Asfura of the National Party a razor-thin margin of 43,000 votes - out of more than 3 million cast - over center-right Liberal Party candidate Salvador Nasralla.

U.S. President Donald Trump backed Asfura and suggested that Washington's support for Honduras was conditional on Asfura winning the election.

The council has until December 30 to declare the winner of the election, who would assume office at the end of January for a four-year term. REUTERS