Trump-Backed Contender Asfura Declared New President of Honduras
Donald Trump-backed candidate Nasry “Tito” Asfura was proclaimed the victor of Honduras’s race for the presidency following a vote count that dragged on for nearly four weeks and was clouded by fraud allegations and accusations of meddling from the US president.
The rightwing Asfura, 67, a building tycoon and ex-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 votes.
The election authority proclaimed a winner before completing the review of all tally sheets under a “extraordinary review” initiated last week to recount votes marked as “irregular”. The move was decried by defeated candidates and lamented by the Organization of American States, which sent an observation mission to the poll held on 30 November.
Asfura has already declared himself the elected president. “Honduras, we now have the official declaration from the CNE [supreme electoral tribunal]. I acknowledge the tremendous effort carried out by the members and the entire team that administered 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 series of statements claiming manipulation in the tallying procedure, including “tampering with official records”, asserting that “the figures from the initial count 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 victory was declared only by the initial pair of councillors.
The representative linked to the president’s party refused to recognise the outcome, claimed that an “stolen election” was taking place and filed a complaint with the attorney general, raising the prospect that the result will be challenged in court.
In its announcement, 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 concluding on 27 January 2030.”
The proclamation prior to the conclusion of the recount was the most recent in a series of disputes that characterized the Central American country’s presidential race, starting with what many saw as blatant meddling by the American head of state.
Days before the vote, Trump publicly backed Asfura, stated the US would back the next government only if he was victorious, and criticized the other leading candidates, calling them communists or allies of Venezuela’s authoritarian leader, 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 given 45 years in prison for reportedly establishing “a cocaine superhighway 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 extends its congratulations to president-elect Asfura and anticipates working with his administration to advance economic growth and security in our hemisphere.”
