Former President Trump-endorsed candidate Nasry “Tito” Asfura has been declared the winner of Honduras’s presidential election following a ballot tally that extended for nearly four weeks and was clouded by fraud allegations and accusations of meddling from the US president.
The conservative Asfura, 67, a building tycoon and former mayor of the capital, Tegucigalpa, secured 40.27% of the vote, compared to 39.53% for the centre-right Salvador Nasralla, a difference of just 28,000 votes.
The electoral council proclaimed a winner before completing the review of all vote records under a “extraordinary review” initiated last week to recount votes flagged as “irregular”. The move was criticised by unsuccessful contenders and lamented by the Organization of American States, which sent an monitoring team to the election held on 30 November.
Asfura has already declared himself president-elect. “Honduras, we now have the official declaration from the CNE [supreme electoral tribunal]. I recognise the great work carried out by the councillors and the whole staff that administered the election. My fellow citizens: I am prepared to lead. I will not let you down. God bless Honduras,” he stated.
Nasralla declined to accept defeat and posted a number of messages claiming manipulation in the tallying procedure, including “forgery of public documents”, claiming that “the figures from the initial count sheets were changed”.
The electoral council is made up of three members: one aligned with Asfura’s party, one with Nasralla’s, and one with the party of the leftist president, Xiomara Castro, whose candidate finished third. Asfura’s win was declared only by the initial pair of councillors.
The representative associated with the president’s party rejected the outcome, claimed that an “electoral coup” was under way and filed a legal challenge with the attorney general, opening the possibility that the result will be challenged in court.
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 proclaims Nasry Juan Asfura Zablah legitimate president of the Republic of Honduras for the presidential term beginning on 27 January 2026 and concluding on 27 January 2030.”
The proclamation before the end of the recount was the most recent in a string of controversies that characterized the Central American country’s presidential race, beginning with what many saw as open interference by the American head of state.
Days before the vote, Trump publicly backed Asfura, said the US would support the next government only if he was victorious, and attacked the other leading candidates, labeling them socialists or allies of Venezuela’s authoritarian leader, Nicolás Maduro.
On the night of the election, the US president also granted clemency for the ex-leader of Honduras and Asfura ally Juan Orlando Hernández, who had been given 45 years in prison for allegedly creating “a major drug trafficking route to the United States”.
The American top diplomat, Marco Rubio, congratulated Asfura on a public platform. “The people of Honduras have made their choice: Nasry Asfura is Honduras’ next president,” stated Rubio. “The United States congratulates the elected president Asfura and anticipates collaborating with his government to promote prosperity and security in our hemisphere.”
