Former US President-Endorsed Candidate Asfura Proclaimed New President of Honduras

Former President Trump-endorsed hopeful Nasry “Tito” Asfura was announced as the victor of Honduras’s race for the presidency after a ballot tally that dragged on for nearly four weeks and was marred by fraud allegations and accusations of interference by the American leader.

The rightwing Asfura, 67, a construction magnate and former mayor of the capital city, Tegucigalpa, obtained 40.27% of the vote, compared to 39.53% for the centre-right Salvador Nasralla, a difference of just 28,000 ballots.

The electoral council declared a victor prior to finishing the review of all vote records under a “special scrutiny” initiated last week to recount votes flagged as “irregular”. The move was decried by defeated candidates and deplored by the OAS, which sent an monitoring team to the poll held on 30 November.

Asfura has already declared himself president-elect. “The nation, we now have the official declaration from the CNE [supreme electoral tribunal]. I acknowledge the tremendous effort undertaken by the members and the whole staff that ran the election. Honduras: I am ready to govern. I will not let you down. God bless Honduras,” he stated.

Nasralla refused to concede and published a series of statements alleging fraud in the tallying procedure, including “forgery of public documents”, claiming that “the data from the initial count sheets were changed”.

The electoral council is composed of three members: one aligned with Asfura’s party, one with Nasralla’s, and one with the party of the progressive president, Xiomara Castro, whose candidate finished third. Asfura’s win was announced only by the first two councillors.

The representative associated with the president’s party rejected the outcome, claimed that an “stolen election” was under way and lodged a complaint with the public prosecutor’s office, raising the prospect that the outcome will be challenged in the judiciary.

In its announcement, the council said: “By the majority will of the people of Honduras, expressed freely at the polls, the full council of the CNE proclaims Nasry Juan Asfura Zablah constitutional president of the Republic of Honduras for the presidential term starting 27 January 2026 and ending on 27 January 2030.”

The declaration before the end of the recount was the latest in a string of disputes that marked the Central American country’s election campaign, starting with what many saw as blatant meddling by the US president.

Shortly prior to the election, Trump publicly backed Asfura, said the US would support the next government only if he won, and criticized the other leading candidates, calling them communists or associates of Venezuela’s dictator, 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 reportedly establishing “a major drug trafficking route to the United States”.

The American top diplomat, Marco Rubio, congratulated Asfura on social media. “The citizens of Honduras have made their choice: Nasry Asfura is Honduras’ next president,” stated Rubio. “The United States congratulates president-elect Asfura and looks forward to working with his government to promote prosperity and security in our hemisphere.”