Trump-Backed Candidate Asfura Proclaimed Incoming President of the Central American Nation
Donald Trump-backed candidate Nasry “Tito” Asfura was proclaimed the winner of Honduras’s race for the presidency following a ballot tally that extended for almost a month and was overshadowed by claims of irregularities and criticism of interference by the American leader.
The conservative Asfura, 67, a construction magnate and former mayor of the capital city, Tegucigalpa, obtained 40.27% of the vote, against 39.53% for the centre-right Salvador Nasralla, a margin of just 28,000 ballots.
The electoral council declared a victor prior to finishing the examination of all vote records under a “special scrutiny” launched last week to re-tally votes flagged as “inconsistent”. The move was criticised by defeated candidates and deplored by the Organization of American States, which deployed an monitoring team to the election held on 30 November.
Asfura has already declared himself president-elect. “Honduras, we now have the official declaration from the CNE [electoral council]. I recognise the tremendous effort undertaken by the councillors and the whole staff that ran the election. Honduras: I am ready to govern. I will not fail you. God bless Honduras,” he wrote.
Nasralla declined to accept defeat and published a number of messages claiming manipulation in the counting process, including “forgery of public documents”, asserting that “the data from the original tally sheets were changed”.
The election board is composed of three councillors: one affiliated with Asfura’s party, one with Nasralla’s, and one with the party of the leftist president, Xiomara Castro, whose candidate finished third. Asfura’s win was declared only by the first two councillors.
The representative linked to the president’s party rejected the result, claimed that an “stolen election” was under way and lodged a legal challenge with the public prosecutor’s office, raising the prospect that the outcome will be contested in the judiciary.
In its statement, the council said: “By the majority will of the Honduran people, expressed freely at the ballot box, the full council of the CNE proclaims Nasry Juan Asfura Zablah legitimate president of the Republic of Honduras for the four-year term beginning on 27 January 2026 and concluding on 27 January 2030.”
The proclamation prior to the conclusion of the review was the latest in a series of disputes that marked 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 main contenders, calling them socialists or associates of Venezuela’s authoritarian leader, Nicolás Maduro.
On the eve of the election, the US president also granted clemency for the former Honduran president and Asfura supporter Juan Orlando Hernández, who had been given 45 years in prison for allegedly creating “a cocaine superhighway to the United States”.
The American top diplomat, Marco Rubio, offered congratulations to Asfura on social media. “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 administration to advance prosperity and safety in our hemisphere.”