Tegucigalpa, Honduras — A businessman who has President Trump’s backing for the presidency of Honduras was locked in a “technical tie” with a rightwing TV host after a preliminary vote rely, the Central American nation’s electoral physique stated Monday.
Nasry Asfura, 67, led 72-year-old rival Salvador Nasralla by simply 515 votes, making it a “technical tie,” Nationwide Electoral Council (CNE) head Ana Paola Corridor stated on X after a partial digital tally of Sunday’s down-to-the-wire poll.
She known as for “patience” because the CNE begins a handbook rely in a vote that left the ruling left-leaning celebration out within the chilly in one in all Latin America’s most impoverished and violent international locations.
Trump backs candidate, claims effort to “change the results”
Days earlier than the vote, former Tegucigalpa mayor Asfura gained Mr. Trump’s backing — because the U.S. president sought to place his finger on the dimensions of one other Latin American election.
Honduran presidential candidate of the Nationwide Social gathering Nasry Asfura gestures throughout a press convention in Tegucigalpa, Dec. 1, 2025, a day after the election.
Marvin RECINOS /AFP/Getty
In a Monday submit on his personal Fact Social platform, Mr. Trump accused the Honduran electoral physique of “trying to change the results” of the vote, including: “If they do, there will be hell to pay!”
He claimed that the CNE had “abruptly stopped counting” ballots on the night time of the election when the preliminary rely “showed a close race between” Asfura and Nasralla, noting the slight lead that tally confirmed for Asfura.
“It is imperative that the Commission finish counting the Votes. Hundreds of thousands of Hondurans must have their Votes counted,” he stated within the submit, which he revealed earlier than the CNE chief urged persistence for a handbook rely.
The U.S. president has develop into more and more vocal about his help for allies in Latin America, threatening to chop help to Argentina and Honduras if his picks don’t win.
Ally Javier Milei got here out on high in Argentina’s mid-term elections, however it’s not but clear if Mr. Trump’s endorsement can be sufficient to safe victory for Asfura, whose marketing campaign slogan was: “Grandad, at your service!”
Might Trump assist swing Honduras again to the proper?
The election is a transparent defeat for ruling leftists trailing far behind within the vote rely. A swing to the proper may assist construct U.S. affect in a rustic that underneath leftist authorities had seemed more and more to China.
The election marketing campaign was dominated by Mr. Trump’s risk and the shock announcement that he would pardon former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez of Asfura’s Nationwide Social gathering.
Former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez is taken in handcuffs to a ready plane for extradition to the U.S., at an Air Pressure base in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, April 21, 2022.
Elmer Martinez/AP
Hernandez, who has all the time maintained his innocence, is serving a 45-year jail sentence in america, the place he was convicted of belonging to one in all “the largest and most violent drug trafficking conspiracies in the world.”
Throughout his trial, U.S. federal prosecutors stated Hernandez turned his Central American nation right into a “narco-state” throughout his 2014-2022 presidency.
Some Hondurans have welcomed Mr. Trump’s intervention, saying they hope it means migrants can be allowed to stay within the U.S.
Many Hondurans have fled north to flee grinding poverty and violence, together with minors fearing pressured recruitment by gangs.
This escape route has been made harder by Mr. Trump’s immigration crackdown, and practically 30,000 Honduran migrants have been deported from the U.S. since his second time period began in January.
The clampdown has dealt a extreme blow to the nation of 11 million folks, the place cash despatched house from overseas accounted for 27% of GDP final 12 months.
Others reject what they see as meddling by Mr. Trump.
“I vote for whomever I please, not because of what Trump has said, because the truth is I live off my work, not off politicians,” Esmeralda Rodriguez, a 56-year-old fruit vendor, instructed AFP.
Michelle Pineda, a 38-year-old service provider, hoped the winner would see the nation “as more than just a bag of money to loot.”
Preemptive accusations of election fraud from the ruling celebration and the opposition have sparked fears of unrest.
The vote rely has progressed slowly, and last outcomes may take days.
Lawmakers and a whole bunch of mayors have been additionally elected within the fiercely polarized nation, which has swung forwards and backwards between nominally leftist and conservative leaders.
Lengthy a transit level for cocaine exported from Colombia to the U.S., Honduras is now additionally a drug producer.
However the candidates barely addressed drug trafficking, poverty or violence on the marketing campaign path.
“I hope the new government will have good lines of communication with Trump, and that he will also support us,” stated Maria Velasquez, 58. “I just want to escape poverty.”
Extra from CBS Information
