Former US President-Endorsed Candidate Asfura Proclaimed New President of Honduras
Former President Trump-endorsed candidate Nasry “Tito” Asfura was proclaimed the winner of Honduras’s presidential election following a ballot tally that extended for almost a month and was overshadowed by fraud allegations and accusations of interference by the US president.
The conservative Asfura, 67, a building tycoon and ex-mayor of the capital city, Tegucigalpa, obtained 40.27% of the vote, compared to 39.53% for the moderate right Salvador Nasralla, a margin of just 28,000 votes.
The electoral council proclaimed a winner before completing the examination of all tally sheets under a “special scrutiny” launched last week to recount votes marked as “inconsistent”. The decision was decried by defeated candidates and deplored by the OAS, which deployed an monitoring team to the election held on 30 November.
Asfura has already declared himself president-elect. “The nation, we now have the formal proclamation from the CNE [supreme electoral tribunal]. I acknowledge the tremendous effort carried out by the members and the whole staff that ran the election. Honduras: I am ready to govern. I will not fail you. God bless Honduras,” he stated.
Nasralla refused to concede and published a number of messages claiming manipulation in the counting process, including “forgery of public documents”, claiming that “the data from the original tally sheets were altered”.
The election board is made up of three councillors: one affiliated with Asfura’s party, one with Nasralla’s, and one with the party of the progressive president, Xiomara Castro, whose nominee finished third. Asfura’s win was announced only by the first two councillors.
The representative linked to the president’s party rejected the result, alleged that an “stolen election” was under way and filed a complaint with the attorney general, opening the possibility that the outcome will be challenged in court.
In its statement, the council said: “By the sovereign choice of the people of Honduras, expressed sovereignly at the ballot box, the plenary session of the CNE proclaims Nasry Juan Asfura Zablah constitutional president of the Republic of Honduras for the presidential term starting 27 January 2026 and ending on 27 January 2030.”
The declaration before the end of the recount was the latest in a string of disputes that marked the Central American country’s presidential race, starting with what many saw as open interference by the American head of state.
Shortly prior to the vote, Trump publicly backed Asfura, stated the US would support the next government only if he was victorious, and attacked the other leading candidates, labeling them communists or allies of Venezuela’s dictator, Nicolás Maduro.
On the night of the election, the American leader also announced a pardon for the former Honduran president and Asfura supporter Juan Orlando Hernández, who had been sentenced 45 years in prison for allegedly creating “a major drug trafficking route to the United States”.
The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, congratulated Asfura on a public platform. “The citizens of Honduras have spoken: Nasry Asfura is Honduras’ next president,” stated Rubio. “The United States congratulates president-elect Asfura and anticipates collaborating with his government to promote economic growth and safety in our hemisphere.”
