Trump-Backed Candidate Asfura Declared New President of the Central American Nation
Donald Trump-backed candidate Nasry “Tito” Asfura has been declared the winner of Honduras’s presidential election after a vote count that extended for nearly four weeks and was marred by fraud allegations and accusations of meddling from the US president.
The conservative 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 difference of just 28,000 votes.
The election authority declared a victor prior to finishing the examination of all vote records under a “special scrutiny” initiated last week to re-tally votes marked as “inconsistent”. The move was decried by defeated candidates and deplored by the OAS, which deployed an monitoring team to the poll held on 30 November.
Asfura has proclaimed himself as the elected president. “Honduras, we now have the formal proclamation from the CNE [electoral council]. I acknowledge the tremendous effort carried out by the councillors and the entire team that ran the election. My fellow citizens: I am prepared to lead. I will not let you down. God bless Honduras,” he wrote.
Nasralla declined to accept defeat and published a number of messages alleging fraud in the tallying procedure, including “forgery of public documents”, asserting that “the data from the initial count sheets were altered”.
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 candidate came in third place. Asfura’s win was announced only by the first two councillors.
The member associated with the president’s party rejected the outcome, alleged that an “electoral coup” was taking place 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 declared: “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 legitimate president of the Republic of Honduras for the presidential term starting 27 January 2026 and concluding on 27 January 2030.”
The declaration prior to the conclusion of the review was the latest in a string of controversies that characterized the Central American country’s presidential race, starting with what many saw as blatant meddling by the US president.
Days before the vote, Trump openly endorsed Asfura, stated the US would back the next government only if he won, and attacked the other main contenders, calling them socialists or associates 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 sentenced 45 years in prison for allegedly creating “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,” said Rubio. “The United States congratulates the elected president Asfura and anticipates collaborating with his government to advance prosperity and safety in our region.”
