Honduras’ electoral tribunal has declared conservative President Juan Orlando Hernandez the official winner of the November 26 presidential election, sparking calls for renewed street protests after a bitterly disputed contest.

Hernandez beat centre-left challenger and TV star Salvador Nasralla by 1.53 percentage points, according to the official count.

“This means the president-elect for the Republic of Honduras for the next four years is Juan Orlando Hernandez Alvarado,” David Matamoros, the head of the tribunal, said in a nationally televised address.

Matamoros said the tribunal had resolved all the challenges presented to it and that votes were recounted at select polling stations.

Honduras has been roiled by political instability and violent protests since the vote, which initial counts suggested Nasralla had won. The count has been questioned by the two main opposition parties, including the Opposition Alliance Against the Dictatorship, headed by Nasralla, as well as a wide swath of the diplomatic corps.

European Union election observers said the vote recount showed no irregularities.

“After comparing a large random sample of voting records provided to us by the Alliance and the original records published on the tribunal’s website, the mission observed that the results presented practically no differences,” said Jose Antonio de Gabriel, the adjunct head of the EU’s mission.

Salvador Nasralla, presidential candidate for the Opposition Alliance Against the Dictatorship, speaks during a news conference with former Honduran president Manuel Zelaya after a meeting with electoral observers of the Organisation of American States (OAS) at a hotel in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, December 12, 2017. (Photo: Reuters)

Former Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, who backed Nasralla, immediately took to Twitter, saying Hernandez “is not our president” and calling for people to take to the streets in protest.

The secretary general of the Organisation of American States, Luis Almagro, said earlier on Sunday that “serious questions” still surrounded the election results and he asked that “irresponsible announcements” be avoided.

The tribunal had initially declared Nasralla the leader in an announcement on the morning after the vote, with just over half of the ballot boxes counted. It then gave no further updates for about 36 hours.

Once results started flowing in again, Nasralla’s lead began narrowing and eventually disappeared.

That prompted national protests, in which 22 people were killed, including two police officers, according to data tallied by the Committee of Detained Disappeared Persons in Honduras.

Reuters