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

Donald Trump-backed candidate Nasry “Tito” Asfura was proclaimed the winner of Honduras’s presidential election after a vote count that dragged on for almost a month and was marred by claims of irregularities and accusations of meddling from the American leader.

The rightwing Asfura, 67, a building tycoon and ex-mayor of the capital city, Tegucigalpa, secured 40.27% of the vote, against 39.53% for the moderate right Salvador Nasralla, a margin of just 28,000 votes.

The electoral council proclaimed a winner before completing the review of all vote records under a “special scrutiny” launched last week to re-tally votes marked as “inconsistent”. The decision was criticised by defeated candidates and lamented by the Organization of American States, which deployed an observation mission to the poll held on 30 November.

Asfura has already declared himself president-elect. “The nation, we now have the formal proclamation from the CNE [electoral council]. I recognise the great work carried out by the members and the entire team that administered the election. My fellow citizens: I am prepared to lead. I will not let you down. God bless Honduras,” he stated.

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 made up 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 nominee finished third. Asfura’s win was announced only by the first two councillors.

The member associated with the president’s party refused to recognise the outcome, claimed that an “electoral coup” was taking place and filed a complaint with the attorney general, raising the prospect that the outcome will be contested 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 declares Nasry Juan Asfura Zablah constitutional president of the Republic of Honduras for the four-year term beginning on 27 January 2026 and concluding on 27 January 2030.”

The declaration before the end of the recount was the most recent in a series of controversies that characterized the Central American country’s presidential race, beginning with what many saw as blatant meddling by the American head of state.

Days before the election, Trump publicly backed Asfura, stated the US would support the next government only if he won, and criticized the other main contenders, calling them socialists or associates of Venezuela’s dictator, Nicolás Maduro.

On the eve of the election, the US president also granted clemency for the former Honduran president and Asfura supporter Juan Orlando Hernández, who had been given 45 years in prison for reportedly establishing “a cocaine superhighway to the United States”.

The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, congratulated Asfura on social media. “The people of Honduras have made their choice: Nasry Asfura is Honduras’ next president,” stated Rubio. “The United States extends its congratulations to president-elect Asfura and anticipates collaborating with his administration to advance economic growth and security in our hemisphere.”