Centrist candidate Salvador Nasralla, 72, says the US president’s remarks may have cost him votes.

Salvador Nasralla, the centrist candidate in Honduras’s presidential election, has accused United States President Donald Trump of election interference amid reports of other irregularities in electoral proceedings.

The US president last week endorsed conservative candidate Nasry Asfura, 67, and labelled Nasralla a “borderline communist” – two moves that Nasralla alleges could cost him a victory.

“It hurt me because I was winning by a much larger margin,” Nasralla, 72, told the Reuters news agency on Thursday in an exclusive interview.

Trump has cast a long shadow over the closely fought election to decide the next president of the Central American country.

The US president alleged without proof that Sunday’s otherwise peaceful vote was fraudulent after early – and incomplete – results showed a “technical tie” between Nasralla and Asfura.

“Looks like Honduras is trying to change the results of their Presidential Election,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Monday. “If they do, there will be hell to pay!”

The US president has previously threatened to cut off aid to Honduras if Asfura did not win, and said there would be “hell to pay” if officials tampered with election results.

He also took the unusual step of announcing a pardon for former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, who was convicted in the US on drug trafficking charges, in the lead-up to Sunday’s vote.

As of Thursday evening, election authorities said they had counted 87 percent of the ballots, but 17 percent of the ballots showed “inconsistencies” and are under review, according to Reuters.

They have until December 30 to submit their final results, Reuters said.

Polls on Thursday gave Asfura a small lead of 40.27 percent against Nasralla’s 39.38 percent, according to Reuters, but experts say the outcome is still unpredictable.

Nasralla has also alleged irregularities during primary voting and vote tampering this week in a series of posts on X, although his allegations have not been independently verified.