Trump-backed candidate Nasry Asfura declared winner of Honduras’ presidential vote

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — Trump-backed candidate Nasry Asfura received Honduras’ presidential election, electoral authorities stated Wednesday afternoon, ending a weeks-long rely that has whittled away on the credibility of the Central American nation’s fragile electoral system.

The election is constant Latin America’s swing to the appropriate, coming only a week after Chile selected the far-right politician José Antonio Kast as its subsequent president.

Asfura, of the conservative Nationwide Celebration obtained 40.27% of the vote within the Nov. 30, edging out four-time candidate Salvador Nasralla of the conservative Liberal Celebration, who completed with 39.53% of the vote.

Honduras’ president-elect

The previous mayor of Honduras’ capital Tegucigalpa, received in his second bid for the presidency, after he and Nasralla had been neck-and-neck throughout a weeks-long vote rely that fueled worldwide concern.

On Tuesday night time a lot of electoral officers and candidates had been already combating and contesting the outcomes of the election. In the meantime, followers in Asfura’s marketing campaign headquarters erupted into cheers.

“Honduras: I am prepared to govern,” wrote Asfura in a put up on X shortly after the outcomes had been launched. “I will not let you down.”

The outcomes had been a rebuke of the present leftist chief, and her governing democratic socialist Liberty and Re-foundation Celebration, generally known as LIBRE, whose candidate completed in a distant third place with 19.19% of the vote.

Trump takes a highlight in Honduras

Secretary of State Marco Rubio congratulated Asfura on Wednesday, writing on a put up on X: “The people of Honduras have spoken … (the Trump administration) looks forward to working with his administration to advance prosperity and security in our hemisphere.”

The European Union and variety of right-leading leaders throughout Latin America, specifically Trump-ally Argentine President Javier Milei, additionally congratulated the politician.

Asfura ran as a realistic politician, pointing to his common infrastructure initiatives within the capital. Trump endorsed the 67-year-old conservative simply days earlier than the vote, saying he was the one Honduran candidate the U.S. administration would work with.

Nasralla maintained the declare that the election was fraudulent on Wednesday, saying electoral authorities who introduced the outcomes “betrayed the Honduran people.”

On Tuesday night time, he additionally addressed Trump in a put up on X, writing: “Mr. President, your endorsed candidate in Honduras is complicit in silencing the votes of our citizens. If he is truly worthy of your backing, if his hands are clean, if he has nothing to fear, then why doesn’t he allow for every vote to be counted?”

He and different opponents of Asfura have maintained that Trump’s last-minute endorsement was an act of electoral interference that in the end swung the outcomes of the vote.

Supporters of the Nationwide Celebration have a good time because the Nationwide Electoral Council decelerate presidential candidate Nasry Asfura the winner of Honduras’ presidential election in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, Wednesday, Dec. 24, 2025.

Fernando Destephen/AP

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Fernando Destephen/AP

A chaotic election

The unexpectedly tumultuous election was additionally marred by a sluggish vote rely, which fueled much more accusations.

The Central American nation was caught in limbo for greater than three weeks as vote counting by electoral authorities lagged, and at one level was paralyzed after a particular rely of ultimate vote tallies was known as, fueling warnings by worldwide leaders.

After expressing democratic concern in regards to the lack of outcomes days earlier than, Group of American States Secretary Common Albert Rambin wrote on a put up on X on Wednesday that the OAS “takes note” of the outcomes introduced and famous it’s “closely following events in Honduras”.

It additionally condemned electoral authorities for asserting the outcomes whereas the ultimate .07% of votes had been counted with such razor-thin margins within the election.

A rightward shift in Latin America

For the incumbent, progressive President Xiomara Castro, the election marked a political reckoning. She was elected in 2021 on a promise to cut back violence and root out corruption.

She was amongst a bunch of progressive leaders in Latin American who had been elected on a hopeful message of change round 5 years in the past however at the moment are being forged out after failing to ship on their imaginative and prescient. Castro stated final week that she would settle for the outcomes of the elections even after she claimed that Trump’s actions within the election amounted to an “electoral coup.”

However Eric Olson, an unbiased worldwide observer throughout the Honduran election with the Seattle Worldwide Basis, and different observers stated the rejection of Castro and her occasion was so definitive that that they had little room to contest the outcomes.

“Very few people, even within LIBRE, believe they won the election. What they will say is there’s been fraud, that there has been intervention by Donald Trump, that we we should tear up the elections and vote again,” Olson stated. “But they’re not saying ‘we won the elections.’ It’s pretty clear they did not.”