Trump-Backed Candidate Asfura Declared Incoming President of the Central American Nation

Former President Trump-endorsed candidate Nasry “Tito” Asfura was proclaimed the winner of Honduras’s presidential election after a ballot tally that dragged on for almost a month and was overshadowed by fraud allegations and criticism of meddling from the American leader.

The conservative Asfura, 67, a construction magnate and former mayor of the capital city, Tegucigalpa, secured 40.27% of the vote, compared to 39.53% for the moderate right Salvador Nasralla, a margin of just 28,000 ballots.

The election authority declared a victor before completing the examination of all vote records under a “extraordinary review” launched last week to recount votes flagged as “inconsistent”. The move was decried by defeated candidates and lamented by the Organization of American States, which sent an observation mission to the election held on 30 November.

Asfura has proclaimed himself as the elected president. “The nation, we now have the formal proclamation from the CNE [supreme electoral tribunal]. I acknowledge the tremendous effort undertaken by the members and the entire team that ran the election. Honduras: I am prepared to lead. I will not let you down. God bless Honduras,” he wrote.

Nasralla declined to accept defeat 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 altered”.

The election board 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 nominee finished third. Asfura’s win was announced only by the initial pair of councillors.

The member associated with the president’s party refused to recognise the result, claimed that an “electoral coup” was taking place and filed a legal challenge with the attorney general, opening the possibility that the result will be challenged in the judiciary.

In its announcement, the council declared: “By the sovereign choice of the people of Honduras, expressed freely at the polls, the plenary session of the CNE declares Nasry Juan Asfura Zablah legitimate president of the Republic of Honduras for the four-year term beginning on 27 January 2026 and ending 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.

Shortly prior to the election, Trump publicly backed Asfura, stated the US would support the next government only if he was victorious, and attacked the other leading candidates, calling them communists or allies 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 given 45 years in prison for reportedly creating “a major drug trafficking route to the United States”.

The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, offered congratulations to Asfura on a public platform. “The citizens of Honduras have made their choice: Nasry Asfura is Honduras’ next president,” said Rubio. “The United States congratulates the elected president Asfura and looks forward to working with his government to promote economic growth and safety in our hemisphere.”