Nasry Asfura won 40.3% of the vote, against 39.5% for Salvador Nasralla. That gap decided Honduras’ presidential election, and it took weeks of delays, technical failures and fraud allegations before the National Electoral Council (CNE) declared it. Asfura, the conservative National Party candidate, was backed by US President Donald Trump. Nasralla, of the centre-right Liberal Party, finished just behind.
Asfura announced his win on X: “Honduras: I am ready to govern. I will not let you down.”
Nasralla did not concede. “I will not accept a result built on omissions,” he told a press conference, though he also asked his supporters to stay calm. Luis Redondo, president of the Honduran Congress, went further and called the result “completely illegal.” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio asked all sides to respect the outcome “so that Honduran authorities may ensure a peaceful transition of authority.”
A count that stalled
Voting took place on 30 November. The count then stopped twice because of technical outages, which electoral officials called “inexcusable.” CNE president Ana Paola Hall pointed at the private company hired to tabulate the results. She said it had done maintenance work without warning the council or checking with it. The stoppage came a day after the portal that showed live results had crashed.
Because the processing system kept failing, around 15% of the tally sheets had to be counted by hand before a winner could be named.
Protests and accusations
The delays brought unrest. Last week protests were held across the country, and thousands of supporters of the governing Libre party marched in Tegucigalpa over what they saw as fraud. Outgoing President Xiomara Castro, who the constitution bars from a second term, had alleged an “electoral coup” was under way. Earlier this month she said the election was being damaged by “interference” from Trump.
Trump did weigh in. When he endorsed Asfura, he said there would be “hell to pay” if the candidate’s very narrow lead were overturned in the count. He also threatened to pull US financial support if Asfura did not win. Separately, he pardoned Juan Orlando Hernández, a National Party member who had been serving a 45-year prison sentence in the US on drug and weapons charges.
Nine days after the vote, Nasralla accused “corrupt people” of manipulating the count. He said Trump’s comments had hurt his chances.
After the result was announced, Rubio said Washington would “look forward to working with his incoming administration to advance our bilateral and regional security co-operation.” He added that the two countries would “end illegal immigration” to the US while strengthening economic ties.
