Nasry “Tito” Asfulura, a conservative politician backed by US President Donald Trump, has been declared the winner of Honduras’ presidential election, narrowly defeating right-wing centrist Salvador Nasralla in a campaign marked by allegations of foreign interference and voter fraud.
With most of the votes counted, National Party member Asfullah was declared the winner with over 40% of the vote and Nasrallah with over 39%, electoral authorities announced on Wednesday. The ruling party’s left-wing candidate Lixi Moncada was a distant third with 19%.
Asfura is a right-wing businessman and former mayor of Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras. Construction King operated on a free market platform focused on foreign investment for economic development. He promised to strengthen national security, health and education.
Experts say he has also shown a conciliatory attitude toward the U.S. president. Like his main opponent, he has vowed to sever ties with Venezuela’s strongman President Nicolas Maduro. President Maduro faces intense pressure from the United States and maintains friendly relations with the outgoing Honduran government.
“Honduras: I am ready to govern,” Asufura told X after the results were announced. “I won’t let you down.”
The results were announced on Christmas Eve, about a month after the election.
Electoral commissioners Ana Paola Hall and Cossette López said in a video message that Asfulura defeated his closest rival, Nasrallah, by a margin of 0.74 percentage points.
In early December, Chairman of the National Electoral Council (CNE) Hall said the close margin between the two leading candidates was “historic”.
The two candidates repeatedly swapped positions during several days of vote counting, which was repeatedly halted and halted.
Both Nasrallah’s party and the ruling Libre party have warned they intend to contest the results.
The announcement of the preliminary tally was halted on December 1, when the candidates were statistically tied. The counting resumed the next day, and at that point Nasrallah had risen to first place, albeit by a narrow margin.
Online vote counting was stopped again on Dec. 3 for “maintenance” by the company responsible for the website, Hall and Lopez said, but they criticized the lack of advance notice to the entire board.
By Dec. 4, Mr. Asfullah was in the lead, but Mr. Nasrallah rejected this, claiming that the electoral commission’s online tally had suddenly changed overnight.
“At 3:24 a.m. on Thursday, December 4, 2025, the screen went blank and data was changed by an algorithm (similar to the one used in 2013). 1,081,000 votes for @SalvaPresidente were awarded to Asfura, and 1,073,000 votes that Asfura had were given to @SalvaPresidente,” he said on X.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio congratulated Mr. Asfura on Wednesday, telling X that the United States “looks forward to working with his administration to advance the prosperity and security of our hemisphere.”
Trump endorsed Asfulura days before the Nov. 30 election, telling Truth Social that week that they could work together to fight “narco-communists.”
“If[Asufura]does not win, the United States will not put good money after bad, because the wrong leader can only have devastating consequences for any country, no matter what country it is,” Trump warned.
The US president also pardoned former President Juan Orlando Hernández, a leading member of the Asufura party, who was serving a 45-year prison sentence in the US for drug trafficking charges.
Lawmakers from Honduras’ ruling Libre party harshly criticized President Trump’s move, with many accusing him of interfering in their country’s affairs.
“There is no question that three days before the election there are two concrete actions that are completely interventionist,” Libre presidential candidate Moncada said.
Earlier this month, President Xiomara Castro accused Trump of “intimidating” the Honduran people.
Castro claimed that the electoral process was “marked by intimidation, manipulation of the provisional results system, and falsification of the will of the people.” She said the government would condemn the situation before the United Nations, the European Union, the Organization of American States and other international organizations.
In the United States, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle questioned President Trump’s decision to pardon a convicted drug trafficker, given the administration’s efforts to disrupt drug trafficking in Latin America.
But President Trump defended the pardon, saying Hernández was the victim of a “witch hunt.”
Mr. Hernandez was convicted by a U.S. judge last year of drug trafficking charges and sentenced to 45 years in prison and an $8 million fine. Prosecutors have accused him of colluding with a drug cartel that allegedly transported more than 400 tons of cocaine through Honduras to the United States during his tenure. In return, prosecutors said, Mr. Hernández accepted millions of dollars in bribes, which he used to fuel his rise in Honduran politics.
Hernandez has maintained his innocence. He claimed the trial was “rigged” and based on accusations by criminals seeking revenge against him. On December 3, he thanked President Trump for his pardon and promised the Honduran people that he would “continue to protect everything we have built together.”
