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

Donald Trump-backed candidate Nasry “Tito” Asfura has been declared the winner of Honduras’s race for the presidency after a ballot tally that extended for nearly four weeks and was clouded by fraud allegations and criticism of meddling from the American leader.

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

The election authority proclaimed a winner prior to finishing 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 deployed 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 [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 fail you. God bless Honduras,” he stated.

Nasralla refused to concede and published a series of statements claiming manipulation in the tallying procedure, including “forgery of public documents”, claiming that “the data from the original tally sheets were altered”.

The electoral council is made up of three members: 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 declared only by the first two councillors.

The member associated with the president’s party refused to recognise the result, alleged that an “electoral coup” was under way and filed a complaint with the public prosecutor’s office, raising the prospect that the result will be contested in the judiciary.

In its announcement, the council said: “By the sovereign choice of the Honduran people, expressed sovereignly at the polls, the plenary session of the CNE proclaims Nasry Juan Asfura Zablah constitutional president of the Republic of Honduras for the presidential term beginning on 27 January 2026 and ending on 27 January 2030.”

The declaration before the end of the review was the most recent in a series of controversies that marked the Central American country’s election campaign, beginning with what many saw as blatant meddling by the US president.

Days before the election, Trump openly endorsed Asfura, said the US would support the next government only if he won, and criticized the other main contenders, labeling 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 ex-leader of Honduras and Asfura supporter Juan Orlando Hernández, who had been sentenced 45 years in prison for reportedly creating “a cocaine superhighway to the United States”.

The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, congratulated Asfura on a public platform. “The people of Honduras have spoken: Nasry Asfura is Honduras’ incoming leader,” said Rubio. “The United States extends its congratulations to the elected president Asfura and looks forward to collaborating with his government to advance prosperity and safety in our hemisphere.”