Donald Trump-backed candidate Nasry “Tito” Asfura was announced as the winner of Honduras’s race for the presidency following a ballot tally that dragged on for almost a month and was marred by fraud allegations and criticism of meddling from the American leader.
The conservative Asfura, 67, a construction magnate and ex-mayor of the capital, Tegucigalpa, obtained 40.27% of the vote, against 39.53% for the centre-right Salvador Nasralla, a margin of just 28,000 votes.
The election authority declared a victor prior to finishing the review of all tally sheets under a “special scrutiny” launched last week to re-tally votes marked as “irregular”. The decision was decried by defeated candidates and deplored by the OAS, which deployed an observation mission to the election held on 30 November.
Asfura has proclaimed himself as the elected president. “The nation, we now have the formal proclamation from the CNE [electoral council]. I recognise the tremendous effort carried out by the councillors and the entire team that administered the election. Honduras: I am prepared to lead. I will not fail you. God bless Honduras,” he wrote.
Nasralla declined to accept defeat and published a series of statements claiming manipulation in the tallying procedure, including “tampering with official records”, claiming that “the figures from the initial count sheets were changed”.
The election board is made up of three councillors: one aligned with Asfura’s party, one with Nasralla’s, and one with the party of the progressive president, Xiomara Castro, whose candidate finished third. Asfura’s win was declared only by the first two councillors.
The member linked to the president’s party refused to recognise the result, alleged that an “electoral coup” was under way and lodged a complaint with the attorney general, raising the prospect that the result will be contested in court.
In its announcement, the council declared: “By the majority will of the people of Honduras, expressed sovereignly at the polls, the plenary session of the CNE proclaims Nasry Juan Asfura Zablah legitimate president of the Republic of Honduras for the four-year term starting 27 January 2026 and concluding on 27 January 2030.”
The proclamation prior to the conclusion of the review was the most recent in a string of controversies that characterized the Central American country’s presidential race, starting with what many saw as blatant meddling by the US president.
Shortly prior to the election, Trump publicly backed Asfura, stated the US would support the next government only if he won, and criticized the other leading candidates, calling them communists or allies of Venezuela’s authoritarian leader, Nicolás Maduro.
On the night of the election, the US president also granted clemency for the former Honduran president and Asfura ally Juan Orlando Hernández, who had been given 45 years in prison for reportedly creating “a cocaine superhighway to the United States”.
The American top diplomat, Marco Rubio, congratulated Asfura on social media. “The citizens of Honduras have made their choice: Nasry Asfura is Honduras’ next president,” stated Rubio. “The United States extends its congratulations to the elected president Asfura and anticipates working with his government to advance economic growth and security in our region.”
