Trump-Backed Nasry Asfura Declared Winner of Honduras Presidential Vote

Honduran electoral authorities declared Nasry Asfura, a conservative backed by President Donald Trump, the winner of the country’s Nov. 30 presidential election on Wednesday, ending a count that lasted weeks and strained confidence in the Central American nation’s fragile electoral system, CBS News and NBC News reported, citing The Associated Press.

Asfura, of the National Party, received 40.27 percent of the vote, narrowly ahead of Salvador Nasralla of the Liberal Party, a four-time candidate, who got 39.39 percent. The candidate of the governing leftist Liberty and Re-foundation Party, known as LIBRE, finished a distant third with 19.19 percent, a result CBS News called a rebuke of the current government. Asfura, 67, is a former mayor of Tegucigalpa, the capital, and won on his second try for the presidency. He ran as a pragmatic politician and pointed to his popular infrastructure projects in the city.

“Honduras: I am prepared to govern,” Asfura wrote after the results were released. “I will not let you down.” CBS News reported that supporters at his campaign headquarters erupted in cheers.

The count was disputed to the end. On Tuesday night, electoral officials and candidates were already fighting over the results. Nasralla said the election was fraudulent and called for a recount of all votes hours before the official announcement. He then addressed Trump in a post: “Mr. President, your endorsed candidate in Honduras is complicit in silencing the votes of our citizens,” NBC News reported.

Trump endorsed Asfura days before the vote and said he was the only Honduran candidate the U.S. administration would work with. “If he doesn’t win, the United States will not be throwing good money after bad, because a wrong Leader can only bring catastrophic results to a country,” Trump said, according to CBS News. Earlier this month, Trump also pardoned former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, a National Party member, on drug trafficking and weapons charges, allowing his release from federal prison. CBS News reported that the move drew criticism from members of both parties.

The result continues what both outlets described as a swing to the right in parts of Latin America, coming a week after Chile elected the far-right politician Jose Antonio Kast as its next president.