Former US President-Endorsed Contender Asfura Proclaimed Incoming Head of State of the Central American Nation
Former President Trump-endorsed hopeful Nasry “Tito” Asfura was announced as the winner of Honduras’s presidential election after a ballot tally that extended for nearly four weeks and was marred by claims of irregularities and accusations of meddling from the US president.
The conservative Asfura, 67, a building tycoon and ex-mayor of the capital, Tegucigalpa, obtained 40.27% of the vote, compared to 39.53% for the moderate right Salvador Nasralla, a difference of just 28,000 ballots.
The election authority proclaimed a winner before completing the examination of all vote records under a “special scrutiny” launched last week to recount votes marked as “inconsistent”. The decision was decried by defeated candidates and lamented by the OAS, which sent an monitoring team to the poll held on 30 November.
Asfura has proclaimed himself as the elected president. “The nation, we now have the formal proclamation from the CNE [supreme electoral tribunal]. I acknowledge the great work undertaken by the members and the whole staff that administered the election. My fellow citizens: I am ready to govern. I will not let you down. God bless Honduras,” he wrote.
Nasralla declined to accept defeat and posted a number of messages claiming manipulation in the tallying procedure, including “forgery of public documents”, claiming that “the data from the original tally sheets were changed”.
The election board is composed of three councillors: one aligned with Asfura’s party, one with Nasralla’s, and one with the party of the leftist president, Xiomara Castro, whose nominee finished third. Asfura’s win was declared only by the initial pair of councillors.
The representative linked to the president’s party rejected the outcome, claimed that an “electoral coup” was under way and lodged a complaint with the attorney general, raising the prospect that the outcome will be challenged in the judiciary.
In its announcement, the council said: “By the sovereign choice of the Honduran people, expressed freely at the ballot box, the full council of the CNE proclaims Nasry Juan Asfura Zablah constitutional president of the Republic of Honduras for the four-year term starting 27 January 2026 and ending on 27 January 2030.”
The proclamation before the end of the review was the latest in a series of disputes that characterized the Central American country’s presidential race, beginning with what many saw as blatant meddling by the American head of state.
Days before the election, Trump publicly backed Asfura, said the US would back the next government only if he won, and criticized the other leading candidates, labeling them communists or allies of Venezuela’s dictator, Nicolás Maduro.
On the eve of the election, the American leader also announced a pardon for the former Honduran president and Asfura ally Juan Orlando Hernández, who had been sentenced 45 years in prison for reportedly creating “a cocaine superhighway to the United States”.
The American top diplomat, Marco Rubio, congratulated Asfura on a public platform. “The people of Honduras have made their choice: Nasry Asfura is Honduras’ incoming leader,” said Rubio. “The United States congratulates the elected president Asfura and looks forward to working with his government to promote economic growth and safety in our region.”
