Former US President-Endorsed Candidate Asfura Proclaimed New President of Honduras
Donald Trump-backed candidate Nasry “Tito” Asfura was proclaimed the winner of Honduras’s race for the presidency after a ballot tally that extended for almost a month and was clouded by fraud allegations and accusations of meddling from the US president.
The rightwing Asfura, 67, a building tycoon and former mayor of the capital, Tegucigalpa, obtained 40.27% of the vote, against 39.53% for the centre-right Salvador Nasralla, a difference of just 28,000 votes.
The electoral council declared a victor prior to finishing the review of all vote records under a “special scrutiny” initiated last week to re-tally votes marked as “inconsistent”. The decision was decried by defeated candidates and lamented by the OAS, which sent an monitoring team to the election held on 30 November.
Asfura has proclaimed himself as the elected president. “Honduras, we now have the formal proclamation from the CNE [supreme electoral tribunal]. I recognise the tremendous effort undertaken by the members and the entire team that administered the election. My fellow citizens: I am ready to govern. I will not fail you. God bless Honduras,” he wrote.
Nasralla refused to concede and posted a number of messages claiming manipulation in the tallying procedure, including “tampering with official records”, asserting that “the data from the original tally sheets were changed”.
The electoral council 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 came in third place. Asfura’s victory was announced only by the first two councillors.
The member linked to the president’s party rejected the result, claimed that an “stolen election” was taking place and filed a legal challenge with the public prosecutor’s office, opening the possibility that the outcome will be contested in court.
In its statement, the council said: “By the majority will of the people of Honduras, expressed freely at the polls, the full council of the CNE declares Nasry Juan Asfura Zablah constitutional president of the Republic of Honduras for the four-year term starting 27 January 2026 and concluding on 27 January 2030.”
The declaration prior to the conclusion of the recount was the latest in a series of controversies that marked the Central American country’s presidential race, beginning with what many saw as blatant meddling by the US president.
Shortly prior to the vote, Trump publicly backed Asfura, stated the US would support the next government only if he was victorious, and attacked the other main contenders, labeling them communists or allies of Venezuela’s authoritarian leader, Nicolás Maduro.
On the eve of the election, the American leader also granted clemency for the ex-leader of Honduras and Asfura ally Juan Orlando Hernández, who had been sentenced 45 years in prison for allegedly creating “a cocaine superhighway to the United States”.
The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, offered congratulations to 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 the elected president Asfura and looks forward to working with his administration to advance prosperity and security in our hemisphere.”
