Former US President-Endorsed Candidate Asfura Proclaimed New President of Honduras
Donald Trump-backed candidate Nasry “Tito” Asfura was announced as the winner of Honduras’s race for the presidency following a vote count that dragged on for almost a month and was marred by claims of irregularities and criticism of interference by the US president.
The rightwing Asfura, 67, a construction magnate and former 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 electoral council proclaimed a winner before completing the review of all vote records under a “special scrutiny” initiated last week to re-tally votes marked as “irregular”. The move was decried by defeated candidates and deplored by the Organization of American States, 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 [electoral council]. I acknowledge the great work undertaken by the members and the entire team that ran the election. My fellow citizens: I am prepared to lead. I will not fail you. God bless Honduras,” he wrote.
Nasralla refused to concede and posted a number of messages claiming manipulation in the counting process, including “forgery of public documents”, asserting that “the figures from the initial count sheets were altered”.
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 progressive president, Xiomara Castro, whose candidate came in third place. Asfura’s win was declared only by the initial pair of councillors.
The member linked to the president’s party refused to recognise the outcome, alleged that an “electoral coup” was taking place and lodged a complaint with the public prosecutor’s office, raising the prospect that the outcome will be contested in the judiciary.
In its statement, the council declared: “By the sovereign choice of the Honduran people, expressed freely at the ballot box, the full council of the CNE declares Nasry Juan Asfura Zablah constitutional president of the Republic of Honduras for the presidential term beginning on 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 controversies that marked 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 openly endorsed Asfura, said the US would back the next government only if he was victorious, and attacked the other main contenders, calling them socialists or associates 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 major drug trafficking route to the United States”.
The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, offered congratulations to Asfura on social media. “The citizens of Honduras have spoken: Nasry Asfura is Honduras’ incoming leader,” stated Rubio. “The United States congratulates president-elect Asfura and looks forward to working with his government to advance economic growth and security in our region.”
