Trump-backed conservative Nasry Asfura wins Honduras election: Authorities

DEVELOPING STORYDEVELOPING STORY,

Asfura says he is ready to govern after narrow vote as the US urges ‘all parties to respect the confirmed results’.

Nasry Asfura, a conservative candidate backed by United States President Donald Trump has won the closely contested presidential elections in Honduras, the country’s election council has said.

The final results, announced on Wednesday more than 20 days than the vote took place, are likely to spark challenges in the Central American nation.

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According to the electoral authority, known as the CNE, Asfura won 40.3 percent of the vote, edging out center-right Liberal Party candidate Salvador Nasralla who received 39.5 percent.

In a brief social media post, Asfura thanked the CNE on Wednesday. “Honduras: I am prepared to govern. I will not fail you,” he wrote.

Trump had come out strongly in support of Asfura, attacking Nasralla and left-wing candidate Rixi Moncada, who ended up garnering less than 20 percent of the votes.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio was quick to congratulate Asfura on Wednesday, saying that Washington looks forward to working with him.

“The people of Honduras have spoken: Nasry Asfura is Honduras’ next president,” Rubio wrote in a social media post.

In a separete statement, Rubio urged “all parties to respect the confirmed results” of the elecitons.

Earlier this month, Trump pardoned former Honduras President Juan Orlando Hernandez – a member of Asfura’s National Party – who was serving a lengthy prison sentence in the US for drug trafficking.

Asfura, the former mayor of Honduras’ capital Tegucigalpa, is of Palestinian descent. But his National Party is staunchly pro-Israel.

Under Hernandez in 2021, Honduras became only the fourth country to move its Israel embassy to Jerusalem in breach of international law. Asfura has also aligned himself with Trump and other right-wing leaders in the Americas, including Argentina’s Javier Milei.

The Argentinian president hailed Honduras’s election results on Wednesday, calling it a victory against “narcosocialism”, although the National Party’s Hernandez is a convicted drug trafficker.

“The Honduran people expressed themselves with courage at the ballot boxes and chose to end years of authoritarianism and decay,” Milei wrote in a social media post.

“From Argentina, we celebrate the triumph of freedom and reaffirm our commitment to democracy, the popular will, and the unrestricted respect for institutions in the region.”

Asfura’s victory marks another win for right-wing candidates in Latin America over the past year. Chile and Bolivia have also elected ultraconservative presidents in 2025, and last year El Salvador’s right wing leader Nayib Bukele comfortably won reelection.

The results appear to reverse the “Pink Tide” – the wave of left-wing leaders who rose to power in the region in the early 2020s.

The rise of right-wing governments in the region coincides with a US pressure campaign against Venezuela’s left-wing President Nicolas Maduro.

Trump has imposed an oil blockade on Venezuela and amassed US troops and military assets near the country.