The presidential election in Honduras was won by Nasry Asfura, who was also supported by US President Donald Trump. This was reported by the AP agency, which referred to the announcement of the election commission. The announcement of the name of the winner of the election ended several weeks of vote counting, which gradually undermined the credibility of the electoral system of this Central American country.
- Conservative Nasry Asfura won the presidential election in Honduras.
- Asfura won 40.27% of the vote, beating Salvador Nasralla with 39.39%.
- Donald Trump endorsed Asfura shortly before the election.
- Defeated, Nasralla claims the election was rigged.
- The Secretary General of the OAS called for the end of the counting of votes.
Asfura from the conservative National Party won a total of 40.27 percent of the votes in the November 30 vote. He narrowly defeated four-time candidate Salvador Nasralla from the Liberal Party, who finished second with 39.39 percent of the vote. Their positions were practically balanced during the several weeks of vote counting.
Asfura is the former mayor of the capital city of Tegucigalpa. In the election campaign, he presented himself as a pragmatic politician, pointing to infrastructure projects in the capital. Trump supported this 67-year-old conservative just a few days before the election – he declared that he was the only Honduran candidate with whom the US administration would cooperate.
Nasralla insists the election was rigged and called for a recount of all votes just hours before the official results were announced. On Tuesday evening, in a post on the X Network, Nasralla addressed Trump, warning him that the candidate he supported in Honduras “he is jointly responsible for silencing the voices of our citizens. If he is truly worthy of your support, if he has clean hands and nothing to fear, why does he not allow every vote to count?”
Nasralla and Asfur’s other opponents say Trump’s last-minute endorsement was an act of election interference that ultimately swayed the outcome of the vote. Honduras has been in a political vacuum for more than three weeks. Given the seriousness of the situation, the Secretary General of the Organization of American States, Albert Rambin, on Monday called on the Honduran authorities to complete the counting of votes by December 30.
The Trump administration has warned that there will be “consequences” for any attempts to disrupt or delay the election process. For the incumbent President Xiomara Castro, the election meant a political showdown. She was elected to the position in 2021 with a promise to limit violence and eradicate corruption.
She was among a group of progressive leaders in Latin America who were elected five years ago on a message of hope for change. However, these leaders are now being forced out of politics because they failed to fulfill their vision. Castro said last week that she accepted the election results, although she claimed that Trump’s actions during the election constituted an “electoral coup”.
