Trump-Backed Contender Asfura Proclaimed New President of the Central American Nation

Former President Trump-endorsed hopeful Nasry “Tito” Asfura was announced as the winner of Honduras’s presidential election after a vote count that dragged on for nearly four weeks and was clouded by fraud allegations and accusations of interference by the US president.

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 moderate right Salvador Nasralla, a difference of just 28,000 votes.

The electoral council proclaimed a winner prior to finishing the examination of all vote records under a “special scrutiny” initiated last week to recount votes marked as “inconsistent”. The move was decried by unsuccessful contenders and lamented by the OAS, which sent an monitoring team to the election held on 30 November.

Asfura has already declared himself the elected president. “The nation, we now have the formal proclamation from the CNE [supreme electoral tribunal]. I recognise the tremendous effort carried out by the councillors and the whole staff that administered the election. My fellow citizens: I am ready to govern. I will not fail you. God bless Honduras,” he wrote.

Nasralla refused to concede and posted a number of messages claiming manipulation in the counting process, including “forgery of public documents”, asserting that “the data from the original tally sheets were altered”.

The election board is composed of three councillors: one affiliated with Asfura’s party, one with Nasralla’s, and one with the party of the progressive president, Xiomara Castro, whose nominee came in third place. Asfura’s victory was announced only by the initial pair of councillors.

The representative associated with the president’s party refused to recognise the result, alleged that an “stolen election” was under way and lodged a complaint with the public prosecutor’s office, opening the possibility that the outcome will be contested in court.

In its statement, the council declared: “By the majority will of the Honduran people, expressed freely at the ballot box, the plenary session of the CNE declares Nasry Juan Asfura Zablah constitutional president of the Republic of Honduras for the four-year term starting 27 January 2026 and concluding on 27 January 2030.”

The declaration before the end of the recount was the latest in a series of disputes that marked the Central American country’s election campaign, beginning with what many saw as blatant meddling by the American head of state.

Shortly prior to the election, Trump publicly backed Asfura, said the US would support the next government only if he was victorious, and criticized the other leading candidates, calling them socialists or associates of Venezuela’s authoritarian leader, Nicolás Maduro.

On the eve of the election, the American leader also granted clemency for the former Honduran president 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 US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, congratulated Asfura on a public platform. “The citizens 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 economic growth and safety in our region.”