Nasry Asfura has secured victory in the presidential election, handing a win to Honduras’ right-of-center National Party (PNH) and altering Central America’s political landscape.
Asfura claimed a 40.3% to 39.5% win over Liberal Party candidate Salvador Nasralla—this result emerged after days of vote-counting disruptions caused by technical glitches and vote-rigging claims from other candidates. Rixi Moncada, the ruling LIBRE party’s candidate, finished far behind in third place.
The race was extremely tight, and the ballot-processing system was in such disarray that roughly 15% of tally sheets—representing hundreds of thousands of votes—had to be counted manually to determine the winner.
Two electoral council members and one deputy approved the results, even amid disputes over the razor-thin vote margin. Marlon Ocha, the third council member, did not appear in the video announcing the winner.
“Honduras: I am ready to govern. I will not let you down,” Asfura stated on X after the results were confirmed.
The head of the Honduran Congress, however, rejected the results and labeled them an “electoral coup.”
“This is completely outside the law,” Congress President Luis Redondo of the LIBRE party posted on X. “It has no value.”
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio congratulated Asfura on X, saying the U.S. “looks forward to working with his administration to advance prosperity and security in our hemisphere.”
Initially, preliminary results on Monday showed 67-year-old Asfura with 41% of the ballot, narrowly leading 72-year-old Nasralla, who had around 39%.
On Tuesday, the website set up to share vote tallies with the public experienced technical problems and crashed, according to the
With just 515 votes separating the candidates—a virtual tie—and the website crash, former President Trump shared a post on Truth Social.
“Looks like Honduras is trying to change the results of their Presidential Election,” he wrote. “If they do, there will be hell to pay!”
By Thursday, Asfura held 40.05% of the vote—about 8,000 votes ahead of Nasralla, who had 39.75%—per . Nasralla then called for an investigation.
“I publicly denounce that today, at 3:24 a.m., the screen went dark and an algorithm, similar to the one used in 2013, changed the data,” Nasralla wrote on social media. He added that 1,081,000 votes for his party were transferred to Asfura, while 1,073,000 votes for Asfura’s National Party were attributed to him.
Nicknamed “Tito,” Asfura is a former mayor of Tegucigalpa who entered the race with a reputation for leadership and a focus on infrastructure, public order, and efficiency.
His win ended a polarized campaign season, with one of the defining moments of the contest being Asfura’s endorsement by
“If he [Asfura] doesn’t win, the United States will not be throwing good money after bad,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform Nov. 28.
Before voting began on Nov. 29, Trump also said he would pardon former President Juan Orlando Hernandez—who once led the same party as Asfura. Hernandez is serving a 45-year sentence for helping drug traffickers.
In the end, the election saw the defeat of the centrist former Vice President of Honduras, and left-wing Ramona, 60, who served under President Xiomara Castro.
As a prominent lawyer, financier, and former Minister of National Defense, she focused on institutional reform and social equity.
Nasralla, a high-profile television personality turned politician, mobilized a base but fell short of converting his popularity into a winning coalition.
He focused on cleaning up Honduran corruption. The presidential race was also impacted by accusations of fraud.
Alongside electing a new president, Hondurans voted for a new Congress and hundreds of local positions.
Reuters contributed to this report.